The Arizona Coyotes will try to snap a seven-game losing streak Friday when they host the Carolina Hurricanes in Tempe, Ariz.
The Coyotes, who are eight points out of the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference entering play Thursday, have managed to garner just one point (0-6-1) during the losing stretch while getting outscored by a 31-16 margin.
Arizona comes in off a 3-1 loss to the visiting Minnesota Wild on Wednesday in a contest that saw No. 1 goalie Connor Ingram depart with an undisclosed injury after stopping 28 of 30 shots in the first two periods. He has a 17-13-2 record with a solid 2.76 goals-against and .912 save percentage.
“It should not be long, 7-10 days,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “They told me after the period he was not going out, and they just told me about a week, so we’ll see.”
Karel Vejmelka (6-12-2, 3.36 GAA, .897 save percentage) finished up and made 12 saves.
Scoring has been a bigger problem for Arizona during the slump. The Coyotes have tallied two goals or fewer in four of the losses.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 25 saves for Minnesota in Wednesday’s loss. Arizona’s potential tying goal by Nick Schmaltz late in the second period was waived off for goalie interference by Barrett Hayton following a challenge by the Wild. Jonas Brodin then scored with 21 seconds left in the period to extend Minnesota’s lead to 2-0.
“That was the kind of goal we needed to score tonight, and unfortunately it didn’t come,” Tourigny said. “I would have loved us to put more pucks on the net. We held onto it a little bit. We were trying for the perfect play, which did not happen because they were playing well defensively.”
The Coyotes did cut it to 2-1 at 5:21 of the third period when rookie Logan Cooley beat Fleury five-hole from the left circle but the Wild answered with a Matt Boldy goal midway through the period to make it 3-1.
“It’s a busy month of games, and we’re going to watch video on this to see how we can get better,” Cooley said. “We have to be ready to go against a heck of a team like Carolina.”
The Hurricanes, who are second in the Metropolitan Division, will be playing the second game of a three-game western road trip that began with a 4-2 loss at Dallas on Tuesday. The contest with the Coyotes is the front half of a back-to-back that ends on Saturday against the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights in Las Vegas.
Jordan Staal and Jesper Fast each scored for Carolina and Pyotr Kochetkov had 19 saves in the loss at Dallas. The contest was tied 2-2 in the third period when Jason Robertson finished an odd-man rush with what proved to be the game-winner. Matt Duchene later sealed the win with an empty-netter.
“Overall, we played a pretty decent game,” Fast said. “It was a very tight game out there. Small details went in their favor. We’ve just got to reload and get ready for the next game.”
This is the second of two meetings between the two teams. Carolina, with goals just 13 seconds apart by Dmitry Orlov and Fast in the final minute of the third period, won the first one, 3-1, on Jan. 27 in Raleigh, N.C.
–Field Level Media
