Garland’s hat trick gives Canucks 5-4 OT win over Coyotes

TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Conor Garland capped his first career hat trick 1:19 into overtime, and the Vancouver Canucks beat the Arizona Coyotes 5-4 Thursday night in the season finale for both teams.

Elias Pettersson scored his 39th goal and J.T. Miller got his 32nd for the Canucks. Rick Tocchet finished 20-12-4 after replacing Bruce Boudreau as Vancouver’s coach. Quinn Hughes had three assists to give him 69 for the season, and Andrei Kuzmenko had two assists and Collin Delia had 24 saves.

“I thought the Coyotes really worked hard,” said Tocchet, who coached the Coyotes for four seasons ending in 2020-21. “It was a weird game, we got the win but it’s one of those games where I think both teams just wanted to get the season over with.”

Liam O’Brien scored twice and Nick Schmaltz and Travis Boyd each had a goal for the Coyotes, who completed their first season at Mullett Arena with a 21-16-4 home record. Clayton Keller assisted on Boyd’s goal in the waning seconds of the first period, allowing him to tie Keith Tkachuk for the most points in a season (86) since the Coyotes moved to the desert in 1996.

Karel Vejmelka finished with 19 saves for Arizona.

“Really proud of the way we battled,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “They never quit. Would have been easy tonight, we were down early. I think it was a good (reflection) of our season. They showed a lot of character.”

Vancouver dominated the opening portion of the game; at one point the Canucks had four goals and the Coyotes had just three shots on goal but Arizona ended up with a 28-24 shots advantage.

Pettersson opened the scoring 3:53 into the game. On Monday he reached the 100-point mark, just the sixth to hit that milestone for the Canucks since they entered the NHL in 1970-71.

After O’Brien tied it up at 5:08, Keller was penalized for delay of game at 6:06 after putting the puck out of play. With 3 seconds left in the power play, Garland scored to give the Canucks a 2-1 lead.

Miller scored on the power play with 7:39 remaining in the first with Boyd off for holding, and Garland’s second of the period with 5:44 left put Vancouver in control at 4-1. However, Boyd scored with just 7 seconds to go in the period to give Arizona some momentum heading to the break.

After the Canucks had 16 shots on goal in the first period, they managed only two in the second and were fortunate to keep the lead. O’Brien’s second, with the same duo of Michael Kesselring and Jack McBain assisting, came midway through the period. The Coyotes also managed to stay out of the penalty box in the second.

Schmaltz tied it with 3:40 remaining, getting career goal No. 100.

Both teams head into the offseason after missing the playoffs.

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