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Weller, Auld help Coyotes finally win in Anaheim

Oct 26, 2007 - 6:33 AM ANAHEIM, California (Ticker) -- Rookie Craig Weller and Alex Auld helped the Phoenix Coyotes leave Anaheim with a rare win.

Weller snapped a scoreless tie in the second period with his first career goal and Auld made 31 saves as the Coyotes snapped a three-game losing streak with a 1-0 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champion Ducks on Thursday.

Auld posted his first shutout of the season and third career for Phoenix, which ended a 10-game slide here. The netminder turned aside 12 shots in the first period, six in the second and 13 in the third after the Coyotes had been outscored, 12-6, during their three-game skid.

"When you come into this building, you expect a lot of work," Auld said. "They are a very good team. In my preparation, you want to focus on being ready and you always think you are going to have a good game. Obviously, you don't expect shutouts every night, but that's great.

"It's a big win for us. We worked incredibly hard and have a lot of young guys, but they are contributing. It seems like almost every night, someone's getting his first goal, and that's a great thing. We just keep battling and we're hungry."

Phoenix coach Wayne Gretzky called Auld's play solid.

"We got one lucky break, one lucky goal and we won the hockey game," Gretzky said. "I can tell you a couple of games we thought we should have won that we didn't win, too. But it kind of evens out in the end of the year. It was a nice win."

Anaheim, which was coming off a brief 0-2-0 road trip, lost just its second home game of the season.

The 26-year-old Weller, who was signed as free agent in July after spending the last four seasons with Hartford of the American Hockey League, got the Coyotes on the scoreboard at 3:03 of the second period.

Niko Kapanen dug the puck off the boards at the blue line and skated to the middle before passing to Weller on the right side.

"I got the puck in our end and started skating to the blue line," Kapanen said. "Anaheim just had a line change, and a couple of their guys were just standing by the boards, probably just waiting on someone.

"So I got a little bit of room and skated into the neutral zone and over the blue line. I saw their D stand up in front of me, so I just passed it to Weller from my side and he shot it very good."

Weller skated in and fired the puck over the left shoulder of goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov for the only goal of the game.

"I just had a good pass from Kapanen and went driving wide," Weller said. "(I took) a chance to just skate with it instead of just tripping it by. So I took that lean and threw a shot at the net. It was pretty nice to have it stand up through the game and win, so it was very special."

The Ducks, who entered with a 4-1-0 home mark, went 0-for-6 on the power play.

"Our defense did a nice job and our (penalty-killing), especially (Mathias) Tjarnqvist and (Mike) Zigomanis, blocked a lot of shots and they did a really nice job," Gretzky said.

"We had our chances tonight and we didn't execute to what we were supposed to do," Ducks right wing Corey Perry said. "We have to learn from this game and move forward. We did a lot of things right but had a couple minutes where we had a lapse, and they capitalized."

Perry had a chance to tie the game with about 12 minutes left, when Auld misplayed the puck behind the net. Perry went to the right side, but Auld scrambled back to make the save.

"I missed the net," Perry said. "It was a wide-open cage. I have no excuse for it."

Bryzgalov stopped 20 shots for Anaheim, which had not lost to Phoenix here since October 12, 2003.