The Chicago Blackhawks ended a 22 road-game losing streak with a 5-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday night at Mullett Arena.
It was Arizona’s top-scorer Clayton Keller’s 500th career NHL game and first game back after missing four due to injury.
Halfway through the first period, a couple themes of the night appeared when Chicago defenseman Seth Jones scored his first goal of the game on a 5-on-3 power play.
Arizona struck back within the first three minutes of what turned out to be a high-scoring second period, when forward Nick Bjugstad netted his 17th goal of the season.
Later in the period, Chicago scored another power play goal when Nick Foligno lit the lamp, assisted by the first overall pick of this year’s draft, Connor Bedard.
Bedard wound up with two points on the night, both assists.
With the Blackhawks leading 2-1 late in the second period, Michael Carcone was able to tie the game for the Coyotes on his own, his second goal in three games.
Unfortunately for Coyotes fans, Arizona couldn’t stay out of the penalty box, resulting in Jason Dickson and Philipp Kurashev racking up two more second-period goals for Chicago with the man advantage.
Even though the Blackhawks are tied with Columbus for the second worst power play percentage in the league at 14.5%, they went 4-for-5 with the man advantage Tuesday night.
Trailing 4-2 late in the game, Arizona pulled goalie Connor Ingram for the extra attacker and Seth Jones scored the bookend, empty-net goal, his third of the season.
Nick Bjugstad commented about the team’s penalty problems after the game.
“We have spent a lot of time in the box this year and it’s cost us. In situations like that, we’ve obviously got to find a way to kill those penalties, but I’m guilty… we’re all guilty of taking penalties,” Bjugstad said.
Michael Carcone, who was able to find the back of the net Tuesday night also talked about their issues with penalties.
“We’re obviously disappointed in the way we’re playing and some of the results…we can see that when we play 5 on 5 we’re good, we’re just taking too many penalties at the end of the day,” Carcone said.
The Coyotes (25-32-5) look to rebound on Thursday when they host another Central Division rival, Minnesota Wild (29-27-6).
Arizona wraps up their current homestand on Friday against the Detroit Redwings (33-22-6).
