Vinnie Hinostroza had two goals and an assist as the Arizona Coyotes beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2 on Tuesday. The loss drops Ottawa to dead last in the league heading into the All-Star break after wins from the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks.
Ryan Dzingel scored his 20th goal of the season with just under eight minutes to go in the third to make it a one-goal game but that’s as close as the Senators would get. Bobby Ryan scored the other goal for the Senators and Craig Anderson made 30 saves.
Senators head coach Guy Boucher saw positives in his team’s last couple games however and gave credit to the Coyotes for not giving up an inch.
“This is a team that’s been playing really good,” he said. “We talked about it this morning. They outcompete teams, the minute they’re ahead they’re really hard to beat because they pull back and they sit back.”
Hinostroza tucked in his second of the game after a point shot from Kevin Connauton bounced off the backboards to him at the side of the net. The Senators challenged the play but after review, it was determined to have crossed the goal line.
His first of the game came after Brady Tkachuk turned the puck over right in front of Anderson, leading to a rebound that landed right on Hinostroza’s stick.
It was a rough night for Tkachuk. That turnover happened not ten minutes after he blew a tire handling the puck at the Coyotes blue line, which led to a shorthanded breakaway for Josh Archibald. Luckily, Anderson squeezed the pads after Archibald went five-hole and managed to keep the puck out.
Boucher was quick to defend the 19-year-old former 4th overall pick.
“Whether you’re 19 or you’re 35 you have those games during the year and you’ve got to fight through it and fight back and he did the rest of the game,” he said. “In 82 games you’re going to have some games that everything goes well, some games are average and some games you get some bad bounces or bad breaks or you fall and things happen.”
The Senators head into the break having lost six of their last 10 games and pick back up on Feb. 1 in Pittsburgh against the Penguins.
