Coyotes rally to defeat Blackhawks in shootout

CHICAGO -- The Arizona Coyotes trailed twice by two goals but rallied to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 in the shootout at United Center on Sunday.

Carl Soderberg had a goal and an assist, and Christian Fischer and Conor Garland scored for Arizona (18-10-4), which went 3-1-0 on its four-game road trip.
Darcy Kuemper made 26 saves in his third straight win for Arizona, which was coming off a 2-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.
WATCH: [All Coyotes vs. Blackhawks highlights]
Jonathan Toews had a goal and two assists, and Robin Lehner made 44 saves for the Blackhawks (12-12-6), who won their previous two games. It was Lehner's first loss in six games against the Coyotes.
"Step back I thought from the last two games, for sure," Chicago coach Jeremy Colliton said. "Especially the second and third, I thought we had a tough time making plays, exiting the zone, we're not able to establish zone time and momentum, and they were. Robin was excellent to get us the point."
Each team killed a penalty in overtime before Nick Schmaltz and Garland scored in the shootout on Arizona's first two attempts. After allowing a goal to Patrick Kane in the second round, Kuemper made the save against Kirby Dach in the top of the third to end the tiebreaker.
"Our PK's always great," Kuemper said. "We're confident when we're short. You never want to be down 4-on-3 late, but those guys did an incredible job in front of me. We were able to kill it off and hang in there."
Schmaltz, who was traded to the Coyotes by the Blackhawks on Nov. 25, 2018, had two assists in his first game against his former team.
Toews put the Blackhawks up 1-0 53 seconds into the game when he redirected a backhand pass from Calvin de Haan.
Alex DeBrincat scored his third goal in as many games on the power play to make it 2-0 at 8:40.

"Obviously, it was a tough stretch there, but I think I could've scored a bunch of goals during that stretch too," DeBrincat said of his 12-game goal drought from Nov. 10-Dec. 2. "I hit a few posts, and sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't. Just keep working hard and not taking anything for granted."
Fischer scored to make it 2-1 at 11:00 when Christian Dvorak's shot went in off his right skate.
Dominik Kubalik gave Chicago a 3-1 lead at 17:55 when he redirected Connor Murphy's shot from the point.
"We had some guys that just needed to play better," Arizona coach Rick Tocchet said of the first period. "I just told them, there's really no system thing, we just have some guys who have to play better, and they did. That was basically it."
Garland scored his Coyotes-leading 12th goal on the power play to make it 3-2 at 6:32 of the second. Soderberg backhanded a pass to the slot for Garland.

Soderberg tied it 3-3 with a power-play goal at 8:53 when his shot from the right face-off circle redirected off Slater Koekkoek's stick.
Lehner made a sprawling glove save on Clayton Keller at 9:18 of the third period.
"Luck. I wouldn't call it technique," Lehner said. "No, it's one of those games they were coming at me all game long."

They said it

"I thought in the first we were getting looks, we were just kind of going back and forth. Their top guys made some plays; they do that a lot. We stuck with it, kind of turned the game around in the second there." -- Coyotes forward Nick Schmaltz
"They had some good lanes and didn't really give up too many Grade A's. Maybe we got to shoot a little bit more or find a way to put a puck on net, sometimes they go in. Sometimes, simple is a good thing. It's all good. We got a point." -- Blackhawks defenseman Calvin de Haan

Need to know

The Coyotes are 4-1-0 in their past five games against the Blackhawks. ... Dvorak has two goals and five assists in the past seven games. ... It was Toews' first game with at least three points since he had five (three goals, two assists) against the Washington Capitals on Jan. 20. ... Blackhawks forward Dylan Sikura had two shots on goal in 9:58 in his first NHL game this season after being recalled from Rockford of the American Hockey League earlier in the day. ... Chicago has scored on the power play in three straight games for the first time since Feb. 22-27.

What's next

Coyotes: Host the Calgary Flames on Tuesday (9 p.m. ET; SN1, FS-A, FS-A PLUS, NHL.TV)
Blackhawks: At the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday (10 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ATTSN-RM, NBCSCH, NHL.TV)