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Saturday, Dec. 11 7:30pm ET
Rejuvenated Pens topple Coyotes | |||||
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PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The Pittsburgh Penguins made a coaching change to shake things up. So far, the move has had the desired effect. Kip Miller ended a 24-game goal drought with the tie-breaking score in the third period as the Penguins beat the Phoenix Coyotes 4-2 on Saturday night for their second win under new coach Herb Brooks.
Brooks replaced Kevin Constantine on Thursday after the team lost three consecutive games and showed little interest in listening to Constantine or following his instructions. Since Brooks has arrived, the atmosphere has changed dramatically. "It's wonderful," forward Matthew Barnaby said. "I'm having a great time playing hockey again. I'm not nervous out there with the puck. I feel great." Jaromir Jagr had two goals and an assist to raise his NHL-leading point total to 46. His second goal was into the empty net with 28 seconds left and was his 22nd of the season. Miller had not scored since he had two goals in the Oct. 1 season opener at Dallas. Aleksey Morozov threw the puck to the net where it hit a skate and bounced to Miller. He fired a quick, low shot past Robert Esche's stick at 12:52. "It was hurting pretty good," Miller said. "My confidence is pretty rattled and I was passing up some good shot chances. It's nice to get one and hopefully get started again. I just shot this one. Thank God I didn't have time to look or think about it, or I might have panicked a little." The Coyotes were outshot 31-11 and didn't have more than five shots in any period. Phoenix was trailing 2-1 and managed just nine shots on goal midway through the third period when former Penguins defenseman J.J. Daigneault scored on a slap shot off the crossbar at 9:24. It was Daigneault's first goal in 19 games this season. The Coyotes were without two of their top forwards, Keith Tkachuk and Greg Adams. Tkachuk missed the game with a neck injury and Adams was out with the flu. "We had some people out and that obviously disrupted the chemistry of our team," Phoenix coach Bob Francis said. "We didn't really do anything to disrupt their momentum because they kept it at us pretty consistently. We spent too much time in our own end." Jagr scored in the first minute of the second period to give Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead. Jagr drew two defenders at the base of the right circle, but was still able to beat Esche. Phoenix's David Oliver scored his first of the season at the end of a power play at 18:09 of the second to tie it 1-1. The Penguins were caught in a line change and couldn't play the puck at center ice as Trevor Letowski fed a pass to Oliver who streaked down the right side and beat Jean-Sebastien Aubin from 40 feet. German Titov had gave the Penguins a 2-1 lead on a power play 45 seconds into the third. Esche stopped Jagr's shot, but Titov was able to backhand in the rebound. Phoenix center Jeremy Roenick's point-scoring streak ended at 11 games. Roenick had nine goals and 21 points during the streak. "You got to give them a lot of credit," Francis said. "They outplayed us and outskilled us."
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Pittsburgh 4 AUDIO/VIDEO Jaromir Jagr nets the first of his two goals on the evening. avi: 535 k RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1 |