In Tempe, the Coyotes opened their home campaign on Saturday afternoon with a 2-1 win over the visiting Anaheim Ducks. 
Karel Vejmelka made 32 saves in the Arizona win.
“It was a big battle, everyone was excited for the first home game, and everybody enjoyed it,” Vejmelka said. “It was a great, great feeling.”
Jason Zucker scored off the power play at 17:41 of the first period to give the Coyotes a 1-0 lead.
“I thought it was a good period of hockey and then we take two penalties late in the first and they generated some energy off that,” Anaheim coach Greg Cronin said. “I thought that changed the complexion of the period and that changed the complexion of the game.”
Clayton Keller extended the advantage to 2-0 at the 14 minute mark of the middle frame.
“They had a tired crew on the ice and they’re pushing to change, and we had a really good possession,” Tourigny said. “That opened up play for us, [we] had traffic in front of the net and ‘Kells’ put one right in the hole.”
The Ducks got on the board in the third period when Frank Vatrano scored in his third straight game to trim the deficit to 2-1, but that was all the Ducks could muster.
“Before the game, we kind of highlighted some things we wanted to do on the power play, generate a lot of chances and we were lucky to get out there with some time left and capitalize,” Vatrano said “[But] we could have had a little more traffic in front of [Vejmelka’s] eyes, made it a little harder on him.”
The Coyotes are sporting a winning record at 3-2-0.
“So far, so good and, yeah, we’ve had really good opponents in that stretch, the three New York (area) teams (Rangers, Islanders, Devils), elite teams, so it’s been good,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said.
Lukas Dostal made 26 saves in the Anaheim loss.
“We want to be hard to play against and sometimes the calls don’t go your way,” Vatrano said. “But we’re not going to change the way we play. I think we’ve just got to do it a little smarter.”
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