Goodrow, Fox lead Rangers to win over Coyotes
NEW YORK — Barclay Goodrow and Adam Fox scored late in the second period as the New York Rangers beat the Arizona Coyotes 4-1 on Sunday night.
Chris Kreider and Ryan Carpenter also scored and Igor Shesterkin made 31 saves for the Rangers who snapped a three-game home losing streak. The Rangers are 13-1-2 in their last 16 games against the Coyotes, dating back to March 2014.
"We played a good team game, blocked a lot of shots,'' said Shesterkin, who improved to 8-2-2. "It meant a lot for me."
Clayton Keller scored for Arizona, which has lost consecutive games after winning the first three on their season-high 14-game road trip. Connor Ingram had 23 saves.
"We came with a lot of urgency, we played well," Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. "But we lost momentum on our power play."
Goodrow broke a scoreless tie when he intercepted a misplayed puck in front of Ingram and deposited his fourth goal of the season with just under five minutes remaining in the middle period.
Fox made it 2-0 just 1:18 later with his fifth goal after the Coyotes had more chances than the Rangers for much of the first two periods. Artemi Panarin had his team-leading 17th assist on the play, giving him 22 points on the season.
"We started off a little slow, got it going and created chances," Fox said. "We got rewarded for it ... We were able to hold them off, got some big saves."
Kreider extended the lead with a power-play goal at 4:39 of the third for his seventh of the season. Mika Zibanejad and Fox had assists, stretching Fox's point streak to six games and giving Zibanejad a point in eight of his last nine.
Keller spoiled Shesterkin's shutout bid with his sixth of the season on the power play at 8:33 of the third, extending his point streak to five games and giving him a team-leading 17 points.
Carpenter made it 4-1 at 11:43 with his first goal since joining the Rangers in the offseason.
Arizona failed to capitalize on two power-play chances in the first period when they outshot the Rangers 17-4 overall.
"Our goalie kept it scoreless, which was important,'' Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. "I thought we gave them too many turnovers and they were first on pucks. Those two PKs were big for us and we got going. We just found a way."
Both teams were coming off losses the previous night — the Rangers lost 2-1 at Nashville and the Coyotes were beaten 4-2 at New Jersey.
Ingram was sharp in the first half of the game, stopping Ryan Lindgren on a 2-on-1 short-handed break 12 minutes into the first on the Rangers' initial shot on goal after Arizona recorded 10 against Shesterkin. Ingram also denied Zibanejad's one-timer on a Rangers power-play with just under two minutes left in the first.
STATS
The Rangers are 7-0-1 when scoring first this season and improved to 11-0-2 against Arizona at home dating back to 2008-09.
LONG TRIP/ARENA DRAMA
Arizona's road trip is tied for the longest in league history and is occurring while annex construction of Mullett Arena at Arizona State University is completed. The Coyotes relocated to the 5,000-seat college-campus arena while seeking approval for a permanent home in Tempe, Arizona, where the Coyotes have been negotiating to build on a tract of land just west of downtown. Arizona was playing on an annual lease at Gila River Arena until the city of Glendale said it would not renew the lease. The Tempe city council voted unanimously last Thursday to send a proposed arena and entertainment district to referendum in May.
UP NEXT
Coyotes: At Vegas on Thursday night.
Rangers: At Seattle on Thursday night to start a four-game West Coast trip.