In Tempe, the Coyotes ended a three-game skid on Friday night to go into the holiday break with a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings on penalties. 
Nick Bjugstad was the lone striker in the skills portion of the evening’s affairs.
“They’re a good team,” Bjugstad said. “They don’t give you much, they’re hard to play against, but [we] battled hard and it was a fun game. We’re thankful to have `Veggie,’ [Vejmelka] that’s for sure. … It’s fun to get wins in games against teams when you’re not favored to win.”
Karel Vejmelka made 26 saves, in the Arizona win.
“That [win] was the result of the way we played,” Arizona coach Andre Tourigny said. “I liked our composure, our resilience. … They had won their last four, but we were stingy defensively and found a way to score a big goal.”
The Coyotes improved to 11-16-5.
“If you’ve talked to everybody in the NHL, we were supposed to be dead by Christmas, and we’re right there,” Tourigny said. “Sure, the fatigue was there. But now we’ve proved we can stay with it, and we can be resilient.”
Alex Iafallo was the lone goal scorer for the Kings, his power play strike tied the game, 1-1, at 11:54 of the second period.
“I was just trying to shoot the puck, to be honest, got a screen and [Sean Durzi] made a nice pass and I’m just trying to get a good shot in there,” Iafallo said.
Nick Schmaltz scored off the power play midway through the opening period for the 1-0 advantage to the Coyotes.
The Kings dropped to 19-12-6.
“I thought it was a gutsy point by our team,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “Our gas tanks were running low. … There was a lot of clogging up of the neutral zone by both teams and there wasn’t a lot of free play. … We settled in and did a lot of things we wanted to do, but we just couldn’t find that net.”
Arizona was 1-for-6 on the power play.
“I think on the 5-on-3 we could adjust a little bit and do a better job there,” McLellan said. “They scored quite quickly, and we still had a full minute-and-a-half or whatever [on the penalty kill], so killing that was important to not go down 2-0.”
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Jonathan Quick made 23 saves in the LA win.
“We gave up a lot of chances that we shouldn’t have, and he made some huge saves for us,” Iafallo said of Quick. “So, we owe it to him. It was a huge point for us.”
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