On a night of high scoring game, the Arizona Coyotes got their 2015 off to a good start with a solid, 6-3, win over the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets.
Despite not feeling well Martin Hanzal had a goal and four points to lead the Coyotes.
“Marty was under the weather before the game and didn’t play as many minutes as usual (14:01), but he still came up with four points,” Arizona coach Dave Tippett said. “He has a hard job in front, but if you’re picked to do it you have to hang in there and it’s expected.”
Arizona is chasing down a playoff spot from a deep hole but Saturday’s win will hopefully portend good things.
“It’s been a pretty good year so far,” Mike Smith. “I understand where I’ve been and where I need to go and it’s one game, but hopefully I can take the feeling I had tonight and take it into the next practice and next game.
“That was by far one of our best games of the year. We were just swarming all over the ice and didn’t give them much space.”
The Blue Jackets had had a successful December with 10 wins but laid the proverbial egg in the desert.
“This surprised me,” Columbus coach Todd Richards said. “When you look at the success and the reason why you are winning games based on how you battle and compete … tonight it wasn’t there. They won battles, we lost battles and they ended up spending more time in our zone. They started to skate and smother us.”
In Vancouver, Ryan Miller made 29 saves in leading the Canucks to a 4-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings.
“When you think about how long pro hockey’s been played, especially at the NHL level, not a lot of people get to say they get to do something like this so I try and just appreciate it,” he said. “I just want to be able to say when the game’s over or even when my career’s over that we had fun with it and we took time on the ice to appreciate each other and compete against each other.”
The Canucks’ offense came off the sticks of Alexander Edler and Radim Vrbata scored on the power play and Henrik Sedin scored two empty-net goals
Leading 2-0, the Canucks surrendered a goal to Tomas Tartar to cut the lead in half.
“Even after they scored their goal there was no panic on the bench,” Sedin said. “We kept playing the way we had throughout the game so I think we showed a lot of composure.”
The Wings are at the start of a long road trip and did not get off to the start their head coach was looking to achieve.
“We did lots of good things,” Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. “Miller was good and our specialty teams weren’t good enough. We had some real good looks (on the third period power plays) too and I thought Miller made some really good saves on those.”
In New York, everyone seemingly got into the action for the Rangers in their 6-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres. Six different skaters scored for the Blueshirts.
“Funny how things are sometimes,” Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. “We scored the three goals on the power play, but the power play that we didn’t score [in the second period], if you analyze everything we did, we did everything right. We had net traffic, we shot the puck, we had puck recovery, we never had it on our stick for more than a second. It’s the only power play we didn’t score. That’s the way it is sometimes.”
The Rangers were handed three power plays in the first and scored on all three chances to take a 3-0 lead and effectively end the suspense for the night.
“We were probably out of it before it even started,” Buffalo coach Ted Nolan said. “I thought the first five to six minutes we had some good energy with a better start than [Friday] night, and then all of a sudden, a bad penalty. They get one [goal]. Then all of a sudden, they get another one and another one, and then the game is over.”
Henrik Lundqvist stopped 24 of 25 shots for the win.
“I looked at them coming into the building, played [Friday] night, and you want to try to get a good game, and that happens,” Lundqvist said of the Sabres. “I kind of felt for them a little bit because three penalties in a row and we cashed in on all three. Obviously it was an important moment in the game, and the way we set the tone there probably helped us win the hockey game.”
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