Lawson Crouse scored two goals including what proved to be the game-winner early in the third period and Karel Vejmelka made 29 saves to lead the visiting Arizona Coyotes to a 4-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Monday night.
Nick Schmaltz scored a goal for the third straight game and Christian Fischer also scored for Arizona, which extended its points streak to six games with its first road victory since Nov. 23 at Carolina. Clayton Keller, Matias Maccelli and J.J. Moser each added two assists for the Coyotes.
Roman Josi and Colton Sissons scored goals for Nashville, which lost for the second time in its last three games. Kevin Lankinen, making his first start since Jan. 17, stopped just 15 of 18 shots.
Arizona took a 1-0 lead at the 17:15 mark of the first period. The Predators turned the puck over while trying to clear it out of their own zone. Keller picked the puck up and passed to Schmaltz, who one-timed a shot from the left faceoff dot past Lankinen’s blocker side for his 14th goal of the season and seventh in his last seven games.
Josi tied it early in the second period with a power-play goal, blasting a slap shot from the point through traffic for his 13th goal of the season.
Sissons gave the Predators a 2-1 lead midway through the period when he roofed a wrist shot from the edge of the right circle for his eighth goal of the season.
Crouse tied it at 2-2 at the 12:17 mark of the period with a power-play goal, one-timing a shot from the edge of the left circle past Lankinen’s blocker side.
Arizona regained the lead early in the third period when Maccelli backhanded a pass from behind the net to Crouse, who snapped a shot from the low slot through Lankinen’s pads for his 19th goal of the season.
Lankinen was pulled for an extra attacker with 1:40 to go and Crouse missed a chance for the hat trick when he fired wide of the open net 30 seconds later. However, Fischer sealed the win for the Coyotes with an empty-netter with 52.9 seconds to go, his ninth goal of the season.
Nashville played without top goal scorer Filip Forsberg, who is day-to-day with an upper-body injury, while Arizona defenseman Jakob Chychrun sat out his second straight game for what the team termed “trade-related reasons.”
–Field Level Media
