Antti Raanta made 40 saves as the Arizona Coyotes shutout the Edmonton Oilers 1-0 Saturday afternoon.
For the eleventh time this season, the opposition scored on its first shot of the game against the Oilers. At 3:26 of the first period, Christian Dvorak deflected Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s point shot past Cam Talbot.
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The Oilers outshot the Coyotes 16-12 in the second period but couldn’t finish any of their chances. Talbot made several excellent saves to keep the Oilers within a goal.
Patrick Maroon crashed the net with 8:52 left in the third and had Oscar Klefbom’s point shot deflect in off his back. However, the Coyotes successfully challenged for goaltender interference and held on to their lead.
“It’s extremely frustrating to have what seems like every single one of these calls go against us in the past two years,” said Talbot. “It’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it. We challenge a goal; it stands. They challenge a goal by us, for some reason, it’s always waved off.”
Oilers head coach Todd McLellan weighed on Maroon’s disallowed goal as well.
“We felt that it was going to count. But again when you’re on the bench, you’re at the will of the officials,” McLellan said. “It’s certainly not black and white — the rules — we continue to see that game after game.”
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Talbot made 31 stops. Laurent Brossoit was an emergency call-up as the back-up goalie after Al Montoya was shaken up during Friday’s practice.
Defenceman Adam Larsson returned to the Oilers lineup after missing eight games due the death of his father.
The Oilers have lost six straight and are now 23-30-4 on the season. They’ll visit Colorado on Sunday. Catch the game on 630 CHED with the Face-off Show at 11:30 a.m. The game starts at 1 p.m.
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