'Yotes Notes: Kuemper Loses Debut with Arizona

GLENDALE --Darcy Kuemper stopped 24 of 27 shots in his debut outing with Arizona on Sunday night at Gila River Arena, but Vancouver goalie Jacob Markstrom was a little bit sharper.
Markstrom made 41 saves to lead the Canucks to a 3-1 victory in the first of four games between the teams in a span of 39 days.

"I'm not happy with the result," Kuemper said. "Obviously we wanted a win. I learned a lot tonight about how we play. The thing I really picked up is how hard we work. We battled, start to finish. Even giving up that early goal, we never got away from the game plan and kept working and clawed our way back into it."
The Coyotes tied the score, 1-1, when Alex Goligoski notched a power-play goal at 9:18 of the third period. But the Canucks answered by scoring two goals, one via a shorthanded, two-on-one rush, within 2:25 later in the final frame.
Daniel Sedin produced the game-winning goal with a nifty deflection over Kuemper's blocker at 11:43 of the third period.
"It fooled me a little bit," Kuemper said. "I thought he was going to knock it down and play it as a breakaway because he had a lot of space. It kind of caught me off guard."

Kuemper said he's glad to get his first game with his new team under his belt.
"I feel more a part of it now and a part of the group now," said Kuemper, whom the Coyotes acquired from Los Angeles on Feb. 21. "It gives me something to build off of … There's a couple things we need to continue to work on, but overall I thought it was a pretty good first game."
He added: "I've just got to adjust my game a little bit. It's mostly just reads. It will come quick. By the end of the first period, I was feeling pretty comfortable in there."
Goligoski liked what he saw from Kuemper.
"He was good, confident," Goligoski said. "He takes up a lot of net and he's always talking back there so I can definitely tell he's going to help us."

• Brad Richardson was called for goaltender interference at 0:43 of the first period, negating a goal scored by Nick Cousins and a 1-0 lead for the Coyotes. Vancouver scored on the ensuing power play to put Arizona in a 1-0 hole.
"It happens quick, but I still don't like the call," Richardson said. "We'd like to see maybe a no goal (call) and then we challenge, but with the penalty it kind of screws us over to do anything."
Replays showed Canucks forward Bo Horvat bumped Richardson into Markstrom during a scrum.
"Obviously I did hit him, so if you want to waive the goal (off) that's fine," Richardson said. "I definitely wasn't trying to hit the goalie, that's for sure. I got pushed."
Head Coach Rick Tocchet agreed.
"Once you get the penalty we obviously can't challenge it," Tocchet said. "I think they made the wrong call giving (Richardson) the penalty. That was a double whammy for us."
• The Coyotes went one for six on power plays and are just one for 19 over the past four games.
"(We were) a little lazy with passes, stuff like that, which drives coaches nuts," Tocchet said. "You want to stamp teams out with power plays. It's a privilege to get on that thing and we figure it's an entitlement. That's what power plays are, really something that can win you hockey games. You've got to do whatever it takes to do the right things. I thought we were a little sloppy in some of these power plays."
• Jakob Chychrun skated 15:13, took two shots, delivered two hits and blocked three shots in his 100th NHL game.
• Richard Panik missed a second consecutive game because of a lower-body injury.
• Every Coyotes skater notched at least one shot on goal except for Niklas Hjalmarsson.
"We had a lot of chances tonight," Tocchet said. "We had Grade A chances. We had (42) shots and we missed the net at least 15 times, like point-blank shots. We just couldn't score."