GLENDALE, Ariz. — Avalanche forward Daniel Winnik has nothing but fond memories from his three-year stint with the Phoenix Coyotes. From the favorable weather to the friendships with teammates he still stays in touch with, Winnik had fun under the sun.
“Playoffs were unbelievable,” Winnik recalled. “Four sellout games, and you couldn’t have asked for a better crowd.”
But that’s in the past, and now that Winnik is wearing a different shade of red, he would finally like to beat his old squad. He and his Avs teammates accomplished that Friday night, and in collecting a 4-3 shootout win against the Coyotes in front of 15,739 at Arena, the Avalanche snapped a four-game losing skid and a five-game winless streak against Phoenix.
“It was a pretty good effort, probably our best effort throughout a game in a long time,” center Jay McClement said. “Usually lately we’ve had a period here and there that’s been good. We’ve haven’t put it all together. I think (Friday night) for the most part, we were pretty good.”
An energetic start for the Avalanche produced a 2-0 lead, but as the minutes ticked away the Coyotes found their legs and some offense. Penalty trouble in the second period halted the Avs’ pressure, and the Coyotes tied the game early in the third courtesy of a Ray Whitney goal.
“Anytime you take three penalties in a period, it’s going to turn the momentum of the game,” Avs coach Joe Sacco said. “They got us back on our heels a little bit.”
Shane Doan’s power-play marker made it 3-2 with 7:37 left in the period, but the Avs destined the game for overtime when center Ryan O’Reilly’s rising shot knotted the score at 3 on the team’s first and only shot of the period.
Extra time solved nothing, and O’Reilly once again proved to be the hero as his attempt beat goal-tender Ilya Bryzgalov for the only successful shot.
The Avs moved to 6-1 in the shootout this season, and netminder Peter Budaj earned his 100th career win as he turned aside 35 shots.
The Avalanche kept steady pressure around Bryzgalov early in the game, and center Philippe Dupuis jammed at his own rebound on Bryzgalov’s doorstep for a 1-0 lead with 23.6 seconds left in the first.
McClement made it 2-0 when his one-timer off a cross-crease pass from Winnik zinged off Bryzgalov’s skate and into the corner of the net 7:16 into the second period.
It wasn’t a model 60-minute effort, but clawing back for the win was a step in the right direction for a team that has won only five of its past 31 games.
“We’re a young team and we’re inexperienced, and we need to talk it out out there,” McClement said. “That comes with confidence and getting a little bit of that swagger and doing it over and over again.”
