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Lindstrom, Coyotes spoil Luongo's return

Jan 16, 2009 - 6:51 AM VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Ticker) -- Joakim Lindstrom and the Phoenix Coyotes did not wait long to crash the party.

Lindstrom recorded his first two-goal game of his career and Ilya Bryzgalov made 31 saves as the Coyotes spoiled the return of Roberto Luongo with a 4-1 triumph over the Vancouver Canucks on Thursday.

Defenseman Keith Yandle recorded a goal and an assist, Peter Mueller also tallied and captain Shane Doan set up a pair of tallies as Phoenix improved to 3-1-0 in its last four games.

"I thought we did a lot of good things," Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky said. "As I told the players yesterday, it's not easy to win. It's hard to win. Winning is hard. But it's much more rewarding than losing.

"I give them a great deal of credit. They all worked extremely (hard), and it was a nice team effort."

After a 24-game absence with a groin injury, Luongo turned aside 28 shots for Vancouver, which lost its fourth in a row overall and sixth consecutive game at General Motors Place.

"He's probably one of the best goalies in the world, if not the best, but it's hard for anyone if you're down for that amount of time," Lindstrom said. "We were talking about putting pucks on the net and going to the net, and I thought we executed pretty well."

"We've got to be a little more confident, for sure," Vancouver's Mats Sundin said. "We've got to get a better start and get everybody into the game quicker, instead of letting the opponent get the start they did tonight. We have another game at home here in a couple of nights, and we have to get a better start than we did tonight."

Daniel Sedin netted his team-leading 22nd goal for the Canucks, who fell to 1-4-2 in their last seven contests.

"We've got to trust each other out there that everybody's doing their job," Sedin said. "Right now, we're working hard, but we're in the wrong areas.

"We're working hard, we're just not doing the right things. The forwards are doing the (defense's) job and the (defense) is doing the forwards' job. We've got to get back and trust each other to do our job."

Lindstrom gave Luongo a rude greeting just 65 seconds into the game.

On the Coyotes' first shot, the 25-year-old Swede caught the netminder moving across the crease and beat him between the pads to quickly silence the crowd.

Lindstrom doubled the advantage over 12 minutes later, collecting the puck in his skates following Yandle's blast from the point before tapping it past Luongo for his seventh goal of the season.

"Two goals, obviously, but the most important thing is to win the game," Lindstrom said. "We can't give up chances, so that was my first priority."

Yandle gave the Coyotes a three-goal bulge just 2:22 into the second period, when he beat Luongo with a one-timer for his first tally in 35 games.

"It was a big (one) for me," Yandle said. "I got one early in the season, first game, and I haven't been able to find the back of the net. It felt (good) to get that one."

Just over six minutes later, Phoenix extended the lead to 4-0. Mueller picked up a loose puck following a faceoff win and beat Luongo between the pads for his 10th tally of the campaign.

"Obviously, I think we were struggling a little bit out there," Luongo said. "We seem like a team that's thinking too much out there. We've just go to go out there and play. Obviously for myself, it was a rough start. These next couple of days are going to be really important for me in practice to try to sharpen up as much as I can."

"I thought he was fine," Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said. "Obviously, Roberto would have liked to come in and probably have that first save, be a difference like he always was. He played a good game. He made some great saves. We didn't give him the help that we're supposed to give our goaltender to be successful. It's as simple as that."

Sedin spoiled Bryzgalov's bid for his third shutout of the season by tucking the puck past him with 8:58 remaining in the third.