Defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere had two goals and an assist and Clayton Keller added two assists as the Arizona Coyotes ended their season-opening, six-game road trip with a 6-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.
Zack Kassian, Dylan Guenther, Jack McBain and Lawson Crouse also scored for Arizona, which got quality goaltending from backup Connor Ingram, who finished with 30 saves.
Arizona was outshot by Columbus 33-19, yet timely goals helped the Coyotes end a two-game slide with just their second win of the young season.
Trailing 5-0, Columbus got third-period goals from Johnny Gaudreau and Kent Johnson before Crouse added an empty-net goal with 20 seconds left to make it 6-2. Andrew Peeke tallied for the Blue Jackets with nine seconds remaining to cap the scoring.
Arizona took a 1-0 lead on a power play. Travis Boyd, upon receiving the puck from Keller, slid a pass to Gostisbehere, who slipped a wrist shot past Daniil Tarasov at the 9:24 mark of the first period.
Kassian doubled the lead with his first goal of the season, which came off Nick Ritchie’s assist with 4:18 left in the opening period.
The Coyotes further extended their lead midway through the second period.
After getting a pass from Josh Brown along the right wing, Keller fired a pass across the goal to a wide-open Gostisbehere, who one-timed the puck past Tarasov with 12:18 left in the period.
Guenther’s power-play goal — off assists by Juuso Valimaki and Matias Maccelli — extended the lead to 4-0 with less than five minutes left in the second period.
It was the last shot Tarasov faced. He was replaced by Elvis Merzlikins, having saved eight of 12 shots.
McBain rang a shot off the post for a 5-0 lead a little more than two minutes into the third period, with Christian Fischer and Liam O’Brien assisting on his first goal of the season.
Merzlikins wound up stopping five of the six shots he faced for Columbus, which took its second loss in the past three games.
–Field Level Media
