The Arizona Coyotes secured a crucial 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins as one of the craziest plays helped lead them to victory. 012224_Tourigny_Post Going into this game, the Coyotes were coming off of a 3-2 win against the Nashville Predators which propelled Arizona right back into the Western Conference wild card hunt. Jason Zucker opened the scoring in the first period, tallying a goal against his former team. Playing and scoring against his former team meant a lot to Zucker. “I’d say it does a little bit,” Zucker said about if it motivates him to play his former team. “We are all proud guys and we all want to make our mark in this league one way or another. When you move on from a team whether it’s a trade or resigning somewhere else, there is always a little bit there.” In the second period, Juuso Välimäki found the back of the net. Välimäki has been a healthy scratch for the past six games prior to Monday night, so this was a big one for him to say the least. “You could probably see it a little bit on the celly there,” Välimäki said on his emotions after scoring. “It felt pretty good. It’s been too long since the last one, so it kind of opened things up for me to be honest.” After the first 40 minutes of play, the Coyotes held a 3-2 lead, an Alexander Kerfoot goal helping break the 2-2 tie late in the second. And then insanity happened. The Coyotes had a delayed penalty early in the third period and with Tristan Jarry out of the net, Kris Letang attempted to pass to Evgeni Malkin who couldn’t handle the puck properly as he was forced to watch it go into the net, capping off potentially the craziest play of the season. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19PYrkvAWpk[/embed] Lawson Crouse was awarded the goal since he was the last player on the Coyotes to touch the puck. This is a play that André Tourigny has never witnessed live in-person. “l saw that on TV,” Tourigny said. “I know it’s happened before, but I honestly didn’t even see that one, so I just saw the result. I will watch that on video.” Similar to their game on Saturday, the Coyotes displayed a complete team effort. They played a quick and hard-nosed brand of hockey. “I think we played a good 60 minutes, I think we played good all game,” Tourigny said. “There is no part of the game where I said ‘ok we lost our game for a little bit’ I really liked the consistency of our game.” With these past two wins, the Coyotes find themselves two points behind the Predators with two games in hand for the second wild card spot in the Western Conference. Arizona is finally starting to hit their groove again and it’s certainly happening at the right time, with the playoff race continuing to get tougher. The Coyotes are set to go on a three-game road trip where they are set to play the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning and Carolina Hurricanes.
