Boedker lifts Coyotes over Avalanche with OT goal
DENVER -- Mikkel Boedker had all kinds of time after grabbing a loose puck near his blue line late in overtime. So much time that he agonized all the way down the ice about the best way to sneak a shot past the hard-to-sneak-anything-past goalie Semyon Varlamov.
In the end, Boedker elected to go high to the stick side. A winning choice.
Boedker scored at 4:17 of overtime and Anders Lindback stopped 38 shots, helping the Arizona Coyotes beat the Colorado Avalanche 2-1 on Sunday night.
"A lot of back and forth," said Boedker, who scored his third OT goal of the season and is tied for the NHL lead. "We were able to get the last laugh, I guess."
All thanks to that breakaway. Fresh legs didn't hurt, either.
Just off the bench, Boedker corralled the puck and easily pulled away from exhausted defenseman Tyson Barrie. The Avs were simply caught in a shift that was too long for 3-on-3 overtime action.
"It was not smart the way we played that overtime," Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said. "We played it like an All-Star Game."
Arizona was a little sluggish early in the game after losing in overtime to Los Angeles the night before. But the Coyotes came on strong in the third with Michael Stone tying the game on a wrist shot.
Jarome Iginla scored his 599th career goal on a power play in the first period. He's one away from becoming the 19th NHL player to reach the 600-goal mark, a milestone he can reach Monday night when the Avalanche travel to San Jose.
"At the time, it felt great," Iginla said. "One away. I thought I had some decent chances that could have been that one."
Lindback made what appeared to be the save of the night with around 3:30 remaining in regulation, when he dove over to the opposite side of the net to stop a shot by Carl Soderberg. Or it may have hit off Lindback's defenseman. He wasn't sure, but knew this much: It was an important stop.
"I tried to get my body over there in some way," Lindback explained. "For me as a goalie, I need to come up with big saves at big times for us to win games like this."
The fast-paced play of overtime was back-and-forth until Boedker scored his 12th goal of the season. Boedker also assisted on the goal by Stone, who sent a slap shot over the right shoulder of Varlamov to tie the game 2:34 into the third period.
"We made some mistakes. We battled back and Lindy (Lindback) was real strong when we needed him," Arizona coach Dave Tippett said. "And Boedker came up with the big goal."
Andreas Martinsen revved up the crowd at Pepsi Center in the second period when he got into a skirmish with former Avalanche player Steve Downie, who seemed to take exception with Martinsen's hit on defenseman Klas Dahlbeck along the boards. Downie received two minutes for instigating, five more for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct.
Moments later, Gabriel Landeskog nearly scored a short-handed goal, when he poked in a loose puck that Lindback thought he had covered. The officials waved off the goal, saying the whistle had blown.
Over the holiday break, Roy decided to reconfigure his line combinations. He went with Landeskog, John Mitchell, and Matt Duchene on the top line, then Alex Tanguay, Nathan MacKinnon and Iginla on another.
"We put ourselves in a chance to win. Unfortunately, it didn't go our way," Iginla said. "We did a lot of good things."
NOTES: Coyotes F Boyd Gordon was a scratch a night after taking a big hit. ... Avalanche backup goaltender Reto Berra will be out about 10 days after hurting his ankle. The team called up Calvin Pickard from San Antonio of the American Hockey League. He will be in net Monday . ... It was Roy's 200th game as an NHL coach. He's 108-70-22.
