ST. LOUIS - At least the Coyotes will always have St. Louis. Phoenix, 0-9 on the road against the rest of the league, completed a two-game season sweep of the Blues at Scottrade Center on Saturday with a hard-fought 2-1 victory.
“I was proud of how we responded after a poor showing in Minnesota,” coach Wayne Gretzky said referring to Friday’s 4-0 loss.
“It was a great effort by our team tonight. I was proud of the way they played. They played for each other.”
Yanic Perreault and Owen Nolan scored for Phoenix, which ended a six-game road slide, and Curtis Joseph made 25 saves to improve to 19-9-2 against his former club and 4-0 against them here over the past two seasons.
“We played a solid game where we did little things, and nothing spectacular but played a good solid road game,” Joseph said.
Perreault blasted the puck into an open net off a long rebound at 18:19 of the second period for the gamewinning score and his seventh goal in 11 games.
Nolan was an assist short of a “Gordie Howe hat trick,” scoring Phoenix’s first goal and fighting Barret Jackman.
But the night belonged to Joseph, who rebounded from Friday’s sub-par outing in Minnesota where he allowed four goals on 26 shots in 2 1/2 periods.
Phoenix also killed 68 seconds of a five-on-three power play midway through the third to preserve their slim lead and ultimately the victory.
Dan Hinote tied the game for St. Louis at 15:14 of the first.
