Coyotes use five straight goals to rally past Wild

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Tyler Pitlick scored twice, and the Arizona Coyotes rallied with five straight goals for a 5-2 win against the Minnesota Wild at Gila River Arena on Saturday.

Conor Garland had a goal and an assist, and Darcy Kuemper made 32 saves for the Coyotes (11-10-3), who had lost three straight home games. Niklas Hjalmarsson, Clayton Keller and Derick Brassard each had two assists.
"It's a huge win for us … a huge two points," Pitlick said. "Minnesota is ahead of us right now (in the Honda West Division), so every game is important. We've got to get two points every night, if we can."
Matt Dumba and Jordan Greenway scored in the first period, but the Wild (13-8-1) couldn't hold a 2-0 lead and lost in regulation for the second time in 10 games (7-2-1). Cam Talbot made 26 saves.
"We didn't have the physical energy, the emotional energy that we've seen (lately) from our group," Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "When they got back into it, we never had that push back. … It didn't seem like we had the life to come back."

The teams split the back-to-back set, with Minnesota winning 5-1 here Friday.
"We just got back and attacked," Garland said. "Four bad periods in a row was enough. … I liked our response. We didn't sit back and wait for them to come back at us, we kept going and going."

Garland's power-play goal gave Arizona a 3-2 lead at 3:57 of the third period. Pitlick scored on a deflection to make it 4-2 at 6:15, then scored into an empty net for the 5-2 final at 19:13.
The Coyotes won despite not scoring in the first period for a 10th consecutive game. They've allowed 13 goals in the first since Garland scored 21 seconds into a 5-4 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues on Feb. 13.

"We haven't been very happy with our starts, and that's been an issue of late, so we had to buckle down and we knew it," Coyotes forward Lawson Crouse said. "We weren't happy, but after that we came out and played a great hockey game. … We've got to keep playing this way, with the same intensity and the same compete level."

Dumba poked the puck over the goal line to give the Wild a 1-0 lead at 14:20 of the first, and Greenway's wrist shot from the top of the right circle made it 2-0 at 15:12.
Minnesota has scored at least two goals in the first period in seven of its past 10 games.
"But they seemed to have more legs than we did," Evason said. "We just didn't have enough to get it done."
Crouse cut it to 2-1 at 1:25 of the second period with his first goal in 23 games, last scoring in a regular-season game March 4, 2020, against the Vancouver Canucks. He scored two goals in nine postseason games last season.
"I think I felt 1,000 pounds lighter there (after scoring)," Crouse said. "… We just wanted to come out and attack, attack, attack, and we did. At that point we just had to lock it in."

Jakob Chychrun tied it 2-2 with a wrist shot from the slot at 13:32.
"We tried to make a push there at the end, but it was too late," Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon said. "When you're trailing a game, you've got to chase, and that's what we had to do."
NOTES: The Wild power play was 0-for-2 and is an NHL-worst 5-for-72 (6.9 percent) this season. … Pitlick's two-goal game was his first since Dec. 31, 2017, for the Dallas Stars against the San Jose Sharks. … Forward Frederik Gauthier had a hit and a blocked shot playing 5:16 in his Coyotes debut. … Garland has 16 points (six goals, 10 assists) in his past 16 games. … Kuemper played for the first time in 10 days; he missed four games with a lower-body injury.