'Yotes Notes: Wedgewood Makes Career-High 41 Saves in Loss

CALGARY --Scott Wedgewood made a career-high 41 saves for the Coyotes on Thursday night in a 3-0 loss to the Calgary Flames at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
Wedgewood, making his fourth consecutive start in place of injured Antti Raanta,kept Arizona in the game for most of the night. But Flames goalie Mike Smith stopped all 28 shots he faced and defeated his former teammates in his first game against them since being traded from the Coyotes to Calgary last June.

"We were just OK," center Brad Richardson said. "We really didn't test 'Smitty' all that much. We kind of had a lot of outside stuff, not a ton of Grade As ... (Wedgewood) kept us in the game. He made some huge saves, kept us close, and then they got that second (goal) and we lost composure a bit and it was game over from there."
Wedgewood faced 14 shots in the first period and stopped them all. He gave up one goal to Mark Jankowski early in the second period and two - one to Mikael Backlund and another to Jankowski - in the third.
"I was comfortable with what I was doing," Wedgewood said. "I thought I played well. Obviously, you don't feel as a goaltender that that's a three-goal game, but it's a team game at the end of the day. Unfortunately, we kind of had some mistakes that I should have hopefully been there making a save on. But it's tough when you don't score."

Wedgewood's most memorable stop came when he made a right-pad save on a breakaway shot by Johnny Gaudreau with 11:07 left in the third period to keep the score 1-0.
"They had (44) shots, but outside of maybe five or 10, there wasn't anything special, so I thought we did a good job in our own end," Wedgewood said.

• Coyotes Head Coach Rick Tocchet was not impressed with his team's effort.
"We were out of gas. You could tell," Tocchet said. "We looked like a tired hockey team. It's a lesson learned. Some guys can't give. If you're tired, you have to play a little bit smarter."
Tocchet said he felt some of the Coyotes stopped competing with urgency after Calgary took a 2-0 lead at 10:19 of the third period.
"Some guys weren't good tonight," Tocchet said. "In this league, if you're down 2-0 with nine minutes left, you're still in the game. Some guys, I thought, gave a little bit there ... We won't accept that. Guys won't be on our team if they're going to give if they're down 2-0."

• The shutout was the first suffered by Arizona in 28 games this season. Smith began his NHL career by shutting out the Phoenix Coyotes as a member of the Dallas Stars in 2006-07.
"He's a good goalie," said Max Domi, who led the Coyotes with four shots on goal. "He played well tonight. I think he deserved that win, and I'm looking forward to the next time we play against them."
• Richardson won 12 of 15 face-offs.

• Defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson, who suffered an upper-body injury in Tuesday's game at Edmonton, did not play. He has missed 11 of 28 games this season. Joel Hanley took Hjalmarsson's place in the lineup. Hanley skated 9:53 and blocked one shot.