Logan Cooley recorded his first career hat trick and the Arizona Coyotes put on an offensive clinic en route to their 8-4 victory over the Nashville Predators on Thursday night. 20240328_PostGame_Cooley_FTP Going into this game, the Coyotes were coming off of an emotional 6-2 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets where Josh Doan scored two goals in his NHL debut. In his return to Arizona, Jason Zucker got two quick goals for the Predators which gave them a 2-0 lead. Since Nashville came into the night as arguably the hottest team in the NHL, it was safe to assume that the Coyotes might be in trouble down two goals early in the first period. However, Arizona responded in a big way with goals from Jack McBain and Cooley. After the first 20 minutes of play the game was tied at 2-2. It was in the second period where the Coyotes elevated their game to another level. Nick Schmaltz, Nick Bjugstad, Clayton Keller and Cooley all recorded goals and Arizona completely took over the game. It was their pace and quick play that was most impressive. It’s been a while since we’ve seen the Coyotes play this fast and they were able to outskate Nashville right out of the building. Clayton Keller ended the game with four points, but the spotlight was on Cooley who recorded a hat trick, potentially the first of many in his career. “Any time you can score in this league it’s pretty special,” Cooley said. “To get three, it’s cool, I thought my linemates had a heck of a game, found me out there and it was a fun game.” If you were to look at the scoreboard, the Coyotes’ offense seems to be the driving factor in this victory. Coach André Tourigny thought otherwise. “Our defense, it’s our defense that feeds our offense,” Tourigny said. “When we don’t play good defense, there is a really simple math, we don’t have the puck. It’s really tough to create offense when you don’t have the puck… In the second and the third we played good defense, we had the puck a lot, so we generated more.” The Coyotes will be back in action on Saturday at Mullett Arena to take on the New York Rangers.
