Ducks @ Coyotes RECAP: Ducks Are Red Hot At The Right Time.

The Anaheim Ducks took on the Arizona Coyotes Saturday night in the last matchup of the 2018 regular season. The Ducks still in the hunt for a home-ice opening round would need to defeat the Coyotes in order to keep that hope alive and need help from their neighbors up north in San Jose.

Here’s a period breakdown of the game.

1st Period

Arizona opened the period with solid pressure and Alex Goligoski forced Ryan Miller to make an early solid save. The continued Coyote pressure caused the Ducks to take the first penalty of the game (shocker). Andrew Cogliano was called for hooking, giving Anaheim’s 5th ranked penalty kill a chance to get some work against Arizona’s 25th ranked power play. Needless to say the Ducks made an easy kill.

The period continued to be physical and halfway through when Anaheim would get it’s first shot with the man advantage. Brad Richardson was called for a cross-check against Josh Mason. Although the Ducks rank towards the bottom in the league in power play success, they capitalized quickly with Adam Henrique scoring on a rebound in front of the net. His 20th as a Duck and his 24th goal of the season. The ice opened up a bit for both teams allowing some scoring chances for both sides. Francois Beauchemin got called for slashing towards the end of the period, but their PK unit would once again stand tall. 1-0 Ducks.

2nd Period

The second period began with a quick kill of the remaining Beauchemin penalty. The Ducks made a push later on with Beauchemin firing a rifle shot at Antti Raatan causing him to fall back making the save.

Tempers would flair up midway through with Corey Perry tripping Nick Cousins after Max Domi literally was holding Perry’s face into the ice while the referee looked on. Then Brad Richardson would engage with Perry who lost his helmet and both got into a heated scrap. All the chaos was in front of Ryan Miller who completely lost his temper and let the refs have a piece of his mind.

The result was another man advantage for the Coyotes. Just like the previous two, the Ducks were able to kill it off with ease. Ryan Miller made some solid saves with the Coyotes creating several scoring chances.

Beauchemin drew another penalty holding Clayton Keller’s stick but like the theme all game, the PK unit was up to the challenge. Aside from an Oliver Ekman-Larsson goal post deflection, Arizona was unable to get close to a tally.

Anaheim turned up the heat towards the end of the period creating constant zone pressure which would finally payoff. Rickard Rakell got a nice feed from Ryan Getzlaf giving him a career high 34 goals on the season. The period came to an end with the Ducks up 2-0 and Arizona with the shot advantage 19-18.

3rd Period

The Coyotes tried their best to finish off the season strong but they were no match for Ryan Miller tonight. The Coyotes were not able to get anything past the netminder in the period and the Ducks did a solid job defensively protecting there lead. The game would end with Hampus Lindholm finding an empty net goal across ice putting an exclamation point on the game and the season as Anaheim prepares for the playoffs. Ryan Miller would end up stopping all 31 shots he faced giving him another shutout in his career and moving him into second all-time for wins by a U.S.-born goalie.