Coyotes beat Montreal in nine-goal thriller for third win of season

Handshakes and high-fives were all around as the Arizona Coyotes scored a season-high five goals to beat the Montreal Canadiens 5-4 on Thursday night.

Arizona, with its third win of the season, rallied from a 2-0 deficit at the end of the first period to come back against the Canadiens (8-10-2). Arizona now has a record of 3-15-3. The win was Arizona’s first in regulation all season.

Coyotes center Brad Richardson scored the team’s first goal from the high slot past Montreal’s goaltender Charlie Lingren at the 15:30 mark in the second period.

About five minutes later, the team recovered from a bad line change to tie the score 2-2 by a goal from Christian Dvorak.

Dvorak bangs in a rebound on the PP because Duclair actually shot the puck. 2-2. Makes up for the poor line change Duclair had on the first Montreal goal.

— Craig Morgan (@craigsmorgan) November 17, 2017

After Montreal took the lead again, Dvorak’s teammate, Tobias Rieder, followed with a goal of his own and tied the game 3-3 with 51 seconds left in the in the second period.

Thirty seconds later, with under 20 seconds remaining in the period, Montreal answered back.

On an assist from the Canadiens Tomas Plekanec, Shea Weber of Montreal scored for his team to take the lead 4-3.

Once again, though, the Coyotes would bounce back. On the power play early in the third period, Derek Stepan scored on an unassisted goal to tie the game 4-4.

The game-winning goal would come out of something the team’s leader was preaching from a player.

Last week, Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet said Christian Fischer would get more goals as he got to the net more.

That strategy worked.

Fischer helped the Coyotes score again – this time on assists from forwards Clayton Keller and Brendan Perlini.

That goal put the Coyotes in a position to win the game, but they had a scare late.

Montreal’s Andrew Shaw looked to score a potential game-tying goal, but the point was not allowed after the game’s referees watched a video replay which found the puck was kicked into the net.

That was clearly the right call. Andrew Shaw also tried a header a while back with Chicago. No soccer moves allowed in hockey.

— Craig Morgan (@craigsmorgan) November 17, 2017

UP NEXT

Thursday’s game was the second stop on a four-game road trip.

Arizona takes on the Ottawa Senators at noon on Saturday. You can listen live on ESPN 620 AM.