Coyotes at Senators
Despite registering only three victories over the past five weeks, the Arizona Coyotes are holding down the final wild card in the Western Conference and remain only three points out of first place in the Pacific Division. Arizona hopes to head home on a high note when they wrap up a four-game road trip at the skidding Ottawa Senators on Thursday night.
The Coyotes actually have played fairly well on the current trek against Atlantic Division teams, winning at Montreal before dropping a 3-2 overtime decision at Toronto on Tuesday. "Last couple of weeks I've liked our game," Arizona coach Rick Tocchet said after his team had an apparent winning goal overturned at Toronto to fall to 3-7-4 in the last 14 games. The Senators are mired in a six-game slide (0-4-2) and have scored only nine times in that span after absorbing their third straight three-goal defeat at Colorado on Tuesday. Coach D.J. Smith called Tuesday's 3-0 loss to the Avalanche a "great effort" by Ottawa, which kicks off a six-game homestand against the Coyotes.
TIME: 7:30 p.m. ET. TV: FS Arizona, FS Arizona-Plus, RDS, TSN5
ABOUT THE COYOTES (28-23-8): Starting netminder Darcy Kuemper's expected return to the lineup hit a snag when he suffered a pregame injury Monday in Montreal, leaving his status unclear. “I honestly don’t know. It’s obviously not the next few days, I’ll put it that way,” Tocchet said of Kuemper, who has been out since Dec. 19. “We’ll see how it reacts. He’s not going to probably be on the ice for four or five days, and then we’ll go from there.” Christian Dvorak has scored in six of 10 games to bump his season total to 17 goals.
ABOUT THE SENATORS (18-27-11): Anthony Duclair had a stellar first half of the season en route to earning All-Star honors, scoring 21 goals in his first 37 games, but he is stuck in an 18-game drought and has not lit the lamp since Dec. 21. Duclair played for Arizona for 2 1/2 years and scored 20 goals in his first full NHL season in 2015-16 and also had stints with Chicago and Columbus before he was acquired by Ottawa last February. Defenseman Mark Borowiecki is expected to play after missing two games due to the birth of his son.
OVERTIME
1. Arizona has won five straight in the series, including a 5-2 victory on Oct. 19.
2. The Senators have failed on all seven power-play chances in the past three games.
3. Coyotes F Carl Soderberg, who scored his 100th goal Tuesday, has 12 points in 16 games versus Ottawa.