In Tempe, the Arizona Coyotes finally played a home game, after a 14-game roadie, on Friday night.
Lawson Crouse scored his second of the game with 14 seconds left in regulation to give the Coyotes a 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins on home ice.
“Kind of a lucky curve of the puck up on their net,” Crouse said. “… I kind of posted up at the blue line thinking it was going to be icing, and [Matias Maccelli] made a great pass over to me on the open side.”
The goal came after a clearing effort by the Coyotes drifted through the crease corner to negate icing. Matias Maccelli controlled the puck below the blue line after being flubbed by the Boston defenseman, his quick pass to the left side found Crouse for the winner.
“We didn’t talk much about it (the streak),” said Karel Vejmelka, “We knew that, but we needed to focus for every period to do our job.”
Vejmelka made 43 saves in the Arizona win.
“I think defensively, for the most part, we took their strength in the offensive zone away, and [Vejmelka] took care of the rest,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “We were relentless. We were heavy. We went toe to toe with them on the intensity.”
The Coyotes improved to 8-13-4.
Boston’s Nick Foligno tied the game, 3-3, at 14:31 of the third period.
“It’s hard to pick us apart when you have that many shots in a game (46). The team did a lot of good things … but we wanted finish more, obviously,” Foligno said. “We dominated that team. It’s unfortunate we didn’t come away with the win.”
Arizona got to work on home ice quickly with Josh Brown scoring on 23 seconds of fresh ice in the first period.
David Pastrnak scored to tie the game, 1-1 headed to the middle frame.
Charlie Coyle gave the Bruins a 2-1 lead in the second period, but Crouse hit for his first of the game to knot it, 2-2.
“The bottom line is you’ve got to be better overall and find ways to deny their Grade-A chances and find ways to put it in the back of the net,” the Bruins’ Patrice Bergeron said.
The Coyotes picked up the lead in the third period on a marker from Nick Schmaltz to make it 3-2.
“It seems like they’re in the top five in the League in everything, so we knew that we would have to be mentally sharp from the puck drop,” Crouse said. “And it didn’t hurt when `Veggie’ is making saves like he did.”
Jeremy Swayman made 12 saves in the Boston loss.
“I wanted to make sure I was keeping it one shot at a time and making saves when I needed to, and I was one save short,” Swayman said. “I want to fix that and move on.”
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