Ducks Dominate Phoenix Coyotes 4-1

The Ducks win!!! For once, the Ducks played a solid 60 minutes of hockey (with the exception of a few sloppy plays in the 2nd) and dominated the Phoenix Coyotes 4-1. Visnovsky finally returned and it was clear how much we needed him. The blue line looked much sharper and the team as a whole had much more energy than usual.

Tonight was definitely the best game of hockey the Ducks have played all season long.

I am going to try and keep these simpler and only give the important notes here. Lets see how this goes…

Game Recap

First Period-

• Lubomir Visnovsky back with the team, much needed return. Hiller in net
• Ducks again looking very good in the first
• Rod Pelley scores on his first shot of the game!! (ANA-1, PHX-0)
• Ducks went 0/3 on the PP this period and registered 13 shots on goal

Second Period-

• At 1:07 Niklas Hagman shoots a wrister from past Smith (ANA-2, PHX-0)
• Ducks starting to look a little sloppy, but the blue line looks much better
• Martin Hanzal capitalizes on a Sbisa penalty (ANA-2, PHX-1)
• Sloppy penalties will always be a problem for the Ducks
• Getzlaf gets a solid breakaway, but makes a lousy attempt
• Niklas Hagman scores his second of the period by storming the crease (ANA-3, PHX-1).

Third Period-

• Kyle Palmieri gets his first NHL goal after redirecting a Bobby Ryan slapshot (ANA-4, PHX-1).
• Mike Smith denies Hagman, stopping him from getting a hat trick
• Ducks look like pros tonight
• Mike Smith AGAIN denies Hagman on a beautiful shot

Stats:

• Jonas Hiller got his 8th win of the season (yikes)
• Kyle Palmieri scored his second NHL goal tonight
• The Ducks head out for a 5 game road trip starting in Chicago
• Rod Pelley scored his first goal as a Duck
• Ryan has points in 3 of his last 4 games.