Streak buster: Wedgewood, Coyotes end 11-game winless skid by beating Seattle

As the clock expired at Gila River River Arena on Saturday, Coyotes forward Jay Beagle scooped up the game puck and Jakob Chychrun presented it to André Tourigny in front of the team to mark Tourigny’s first NHL coaching win.

In the same locker room madness of high fives and hugs, Christian Fischer presented the game belt to Lawson Crouse for his two-goal effort, including the game-winner.

Moments earlier, GM Bill Armstrong had practically giggled his way down the hallway to the executive offices alongside director of hockey operations David Ludwig. And when the Coyotes were finally ready to digest a 5-4 win against the Seattle Kraken that snapped their franchise record-tying 11-game winless streak, it was only fitting that goalie Scott Wedgewood arrived first in the media interview room to discuss an individual record that likely will never be broken.

Here's a record that I think Scott Wedgewood will hold for all of eternity.
He is the only goalie in NHL history to snap two 11-game winless streaks to start a season with the same team.

— Craig Morgan (@CraigSMorgan) November 7, 2021

“I don’t wish it upon anybody,” the well-traveled goalie said while chuckling. “Whoever is writing my story is sick and twisted.”

That fits well in these parts. Say what you will about the Coyotes, but they rarely do easy and they never do dull. 

Despite his streak-busting experience with the 2017-18 Coyotes, Wedgewood wasn’t even scheduled to start against the expansion Kraken. Tourigny elected to go back to Karel Vejmelka, who had played the previous night in Anaheim, because Wedgewood hadn’t practiced with the Coyotes after they claimed him off waivers on Thursday.

“I thought that it would be better for him to have a chance to practice with the team,” Tourigny said. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

Tourigny discovered the error of his ways just two shots into the game. Seattle forward Jordan Eberle stole a puck behind the Coyotes net, skated out front and banked a backhand off the far post and in for a 1-0 lead 15 seconds after puck drop. 

Kraken forward Yanni Gourde scored off the rush to make it 2-0 just 59 seconds into the game.

That was it for Vejmelka. Tourigny pulled him and inserted Wedgewood. Antoine Roussel scored 34 seconds later to cut the lead to 2-1 but a bad misplay by Ilya Lyubushkin allowed Nathan Bastian to corral a puck in front of the net, deke Wedgewood to the ice and slip the puck in the far side for a 3-1 lead at the first intermission.

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The Coyotes had topped four goals only once all season, and they hadn’t topped one goal in seven of their past eight games. It looked like they were on their way to setting a franchise-record winless streak to start a season, and maybe destined to break the NHL record of 15.

Instead, Shayne Gostisbehere pinched on a puck along the wall in the Seattle zone and chipped it to Fischer in the middle. Fischer’s pass found Travis Boyd at the doorstep and it was 3-2 after two periods.

Crouse tied the game 46 seconds into the third period, and when Phil Kessel scored on a power play with 6:26 left in regulation, it looked like the Coyotes’ night. Even Mark Giordano’s game-tying goal with 1:18 remaining couldn’t fluster the Coyotes. Crouse scored 13 seconds later off a centering pass from Johan Larsson, and the elation on his face said it all.

CROUSE ARE YOU KIDDING?! pic.twitter.com/zv1wUyRrET

— Arizona Coyotes (@ArizonaCoyotes) November 7, 2021

“Probably the easiest thing to think is, ‘Here we go again,’” Crouse said of the early two-goal deficit the Coyotes faced. “In previous games, we would start to cheat and change things up, but we stuck to it and obviously it worked for us.”

There is no forgetting the greater goal of this season. The Coyotes are rebuilding and the lower they finish in the standings, the higher they will likely draft. It’s not prudent to expect this win to lead to a lengthy winning streak, but for the next three days in between games, the players and coaches can push all of those thoughts to the side and enjoy a much-needed release and relief. This team has mostly worked hard throughout this agonizing stretch. The Coyotes deserved this one.

“Those games weren’t fun, losing those games,” Crouse said. “A couple of them, we were right there, we just couldn’t score. It was nice to get that tonight.”

It was also eerie how many similarities existed between this streak buster and the one in Philadelphia four years ago. Not only was Wedgewood the Coyotes goalie in both games (despite stints with four different organizations in between those games), he also gave two separate coaches their first win as Coyotes: Rick Tocchet and Tourigny. And just for kicks, the guy behind the other bench in both games was coach Dave Hakstol, who was fired as Flyers coach on Dec. 17, 2018, and then hired as Kraken coach in July of 2021. The guy whom everyone expected to get the job instead of Hakstol? Tocchet.

Tourigny wasn’t focused on all of those coincidences as he basked in his first taste of NHL coaching success, but perhaps he learned a lesson. When the hockey gods hand you an omen, don’t park it on the bench.  

“You know, it hurts as a coach when you like your players, and you like their effort, and you like what they do, and they don’t get a reward, and they finish the game and they’re hurt,” Tourigny said. “I think it was great for them to be rewarded. For the players to stay with it and dig in and believe in the process, believe in themselves, trust in each other, that was huge.”

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