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Underdog Coyotes Defeat Golden Knights |
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The Golden Knights fell 3-1 to the Arizona Coyotes last night. The Coyotes played a staunch defensive game keeping Vegas to the outside and limiting quality opportunities. The Coyotes came prepared to play defence and held the Knights to under eight shots in periods one and three. The game opened up in the second largely due to Max Pacioretty drawing a couple penalties, but those only resulted in one power play goal. Overall Vegas will have to work on opening up their east-west game for next time they play the Arizona Coyotes. Which brings me to:
A lack of Martinez muzzled the offence
Bedford, Nova Scotia native Peter Diliberatore took Alec Martinez’s place on Pietrangelo’s pairing and it showed. Martinez moves the puck so well in the offensive zone and the Knights looked like they were waiting for the play to open up all game. The 21 year old Diliberatore held his own well enough, but the Golden Knights were missing Martinez’s passing game last night against a very conservative Coyotes defence.
The Coyotes are relishing in the underdog role
Seems fitting, right? The other desert team took a bevy of cap burdens in exchange for draft picks in the offseason. They got quite a bit in return. On top of 9th overall pick Dylan Guenther in 2021, the Coyotes have two first round picks next year and FIVE second round picks in the 2022 NHL Entry Draft.
These “cap burdens” looked good last night. Calgary Hitmen alumni Andrew Ladd in particular looked great with a goal and an assist. Louie Eriksson, who has been ripping up this preseason, looked sharp with three takeaways and three shots on goal. Roussel had four shots on goal and was +2. Gostisbehere made several crafty passes to gain the opposing blue line. Overall the Coyotes kept position on the Golden Knights. The gold and blacks just couldn’t seem to get any space or opportunity in the slot. They tried to use their speed to get room to the outside in the offensive zone and there seemed to be a Coyote on the puck carrier in under a second and a half every time.
DeBoer is driving a certain writer nuts
Head Coach Peter DeBoer practiced with an entirely different line setup than the one listed below the day before this game. Nolan Patrick practiced on the first line on Wednesday and it would only make sense that they would be rolling out the lines listed yesterday. Nope. An hour before game time DeBoer reverts to the classic setup and your boy has egg on his face after writing a whole piece about Nolan Patrick starting on the first line. I would like to get these game day posts out earlier than 30 minutes before the game, but things like above issue will happen. Apologies.
Pacioretty–Stephenson–Stone
Marchessault–Karlsson–Smith
Janmark–Patrick–Dadonov
Krebs–Quinney–Kolesar
DiLiberatore–Pietrangelo
McNabb–Whitecloud
Hague–Coghlan
The Golden Knights play again tomorrow at 6pm against the Sharks.
Have a great day,
Trevor Neufeld
Vegas Golden Knights Blogger • 
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