In Tempe, the visiting New York Islanders’ Bo Horvat hit for the first and final goals on Thursday night in a 5-1 win over the Coyotes.
The Islanders improved to 18-10-10, snapping a two-game schneid.
Ilya Sorokin made 25 saves in the win.
“He really made some key saves tonight at the right times,” New York coach Lane Lambert said. “That was it nice to see, and he certainly helped us in terms of not giving them any momentum.”
Horvat scored off the power play at 7:56 of the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Isles.
“I thought that both Bo and `Barzy’ (Mathew Barzal) were skating determined, just very, very solid, steady play away from the puck both of them,” Lambert said. “As a result, they had some opportunities and created some chances and got some numbers.”
Mike Reilly pushed the lead to 2-0 at 12:02.
The Coyotes dropped to 19-16-2 off their second straight loss.
“Our puck play was difficult, even the simple play was difficult. Our execution hurt us a lot,” Arizona coach Andre Tourigny said. “They (the Islanders) played well, but a lot of it was self-inflicted.”
Nick Schmaltz was the lone striker for the Coyotes, his second period power play goal trimmed the New York lead to 2-1 headed to the third.
In the third period, the Islanders broke the game open with three goals.
Anders Lee made it 31 at 4:29.
Julien Gauthier scored 53 second later off an end-to-end rush to make it 4-2 to New York.
“We didn’t have a good second period, they were buzzing in our own zone and getting a lot of opportunities,” Gauthier said. “So, we were talking after that period, ‘We need to come out strong and if we play if we play good in our own zone, we’ll get opportunities offensively.’ That’s what we had tonight, and the third period was great for us.”
Horvat hit for his double at 13:05 for the 5-1 final count.
“I think we kind of learned from our mistakes and played really well in the third period, something that we’ve haven’t done in the past,” Horvat said. “Tonight, I thought we did a great job with that.”
Connor Ingram made 26 saves in the loss.
“There were a lot of [bad] plays with the puck, passes, interceptions. There’s nothing you can do if you can’t execute,” Tourigny said. “Part of it is concentration. You can’t win in this league if you can’t make plays with the puck.”


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