'Yotes Notes: Keller Extends Point Streak to Eight Games in Loss to Ducks

ANAHEIM --Clayton Keller scored a power-play goal during Arizona's 5-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday to extend his point streak to eight games, a new career-high. The 19-year-old rookie produced a seven-game point streak earlier this season.

Keller deflected a shot by Derek Stepan past Ducks goalie John Gibson at 6:52 of the third period to pull Arizona into a 2-2 tie with Anaheim at the Honda Center. The goal was his team-leading 14th of the season and it enabled the Coyotes to seize some momentum, which was short-lived. The Ducks scored three unanswered goals and pulled away.
"I thought we played a good game until then," Keller said. "... I think it was a lot closer than what the score said. I thought we played well, but when it came down to it I don't think we beared down hard enough."

Keller ranks second among NHL rookies with 14 goals; only Vancouver's Brock Boesser (21) has scored more. And Keller leads all NHL rookie forwards in time on ice per game (18:48).
"I know I'm relying on him a lot as a 19-year-old," Head Coach Rick Tocchet said before Sunday's game. "I'm playing him 18 or 19 minutes against the best of the best, on the power play, the penalty kill lately … In all fairness, that's a lot of pressure. But he loves it and that's what I love about him."
• Brendan Perlini scored Arizona's first goal, also during a power play, at 11:04 of the first period. The goal was Perlini's 10th of the season and his 24th NHL goal in his 91st game.
Like Keller, Perlini liked how the Coyotes twice rallied to tie the score.
"We fought back and got back in the game," Perlini said. "It was a good effort by the guys. The score line doesn't really justify how we played."

• The Coyotes scored two power-play goals and committed just one penalty, but a few lapses late in the game cost them dearly yet again.
"We played a good game," Tocchet said. "I'm happy with the effort. We had a couple of breakdowns and (made) crucial mistakes at the wrong time, and it was in our net. That seems to be the story of our team."

• Arizona played minus two alternate captains, Niklas Hjalmarsson and Brad Richardson. Both are nursing upper-body injuries. Zac Rinaldo also did not play as he served the third game of his six-game NHL suspension.
• The Coyotes dropped to 0-5-1 in six games played on the road on New Year's Eve since the franchise moved to Arizona in 1996.
• Sunday's game was the 41st of 82 regular-season games. The Coyotes posted a 9-27-5 record and earned a League-low 23 points in the first half of the season.
"We kind of just want to flush the first half down, come into the new year with a new mindset, and play the best hockey we can," Keller said of the team's goal for the second half, whcih begins Thursday vs. Nashville at Gila River Arena.