When You Need an Easy Win In the NHL, You Can Always Count On the Coyotes to Roll Over

It's a shame that the world will likely never get what it secretly desires: a Bruins-Coyotes matchup in the Stanley Cup Final. Boston (13-9-4) swept the season series with lowly Arizona (7-19-5)-the worst team in the Western Conference-with a 6-1 drubbing tonight at TD Garden. When you add up Boston's 6-2 beating at Arizona on October 14, the B's outscored the Coyotes 12-3 in their two meetings this season. Other than the lopsided score and Boston extending their win-streak vs. Arizona to 12 games (!), this one will likely be most remembered for David Backes scoring two goals.

In case you haven't been paying attention (and who doesn't love the NHL in October, November and December?), Backes had colon surgery and returned way sooner than anyone could have reasonably expected. His assist in Monday's 5-3 loss at Nashville (18-7-3) was the 500th point of his NHL career and his pair of goals tonight were his first of the season (his last one was on March 28 vs. Nashville). Backes is a very likable guy to begin with so this admirable return gives you even more reason to root for him. Did I mention that he loves animals and does tons of charity work for dogs?

The Coyotes were 5-3-2 in their last 10 games coming into this tilt but they couldn't be bothered to put up much of a fight this evening. What else can you conclude when Brad Marchand made it 1-0 B's just 15 seconds into the contest? David Pastrnak (7-game point streak) and Patrice Bergeron assisted on Marchand's 10th goal of the season. Thanks to Brandon Carlo's rough turnover, Christian Dvorak (4th goal of the season) tied it for Arizona at 17:07 of the first period.

Backes' goals came in succession in the second period: first he tipped in Riley Nash's shot from the point with Matt Grzelcyk picking up the other helper at 13:54. Alex Goligoski saw Carlo's error and matched it with an equally egregious mistake that led to Backes' unassisted goal with 54 seconds left in the frame. The veteran American skated in on a breakaway which needless to say, doesn't happen too often for a slower player like him. This marked the second time this season that Boston hasn't been called for a penalty (also Nov. 15 at Anaheim) and Arizona faced the brunt of four whistles.

David Krejci put it out of reach 45 seconds into the third as he finished a pretty passing sequence with Marchand and Bergeron for a power play goal (his 4th tally of the season). Poor Scott Wedgewood (26 saves)-great name!-had no friends that wanted to help him out as he was continually under fire by the Bruins' normally average offense. Two rookies rounded out the scoring for Boston as Danton Heinen (5th goal of the season) put in a juicy rebound at 17:56 from Nash and Kevan Miller than Anders Bjork was on the end of a rush that looked straight out of practice or better yet a preseason game with 1:09 left in garbage time. Bjork's fourth goal of the season was also assisted by Zdeno Chara.

You never talk about the goaltender in a 6-1 victory but Tuukka Rask (20 saves) won his third start in a row, remember when there was a legitimate goalie controversy a few weeks ago? Unlike the miserable Coyotes, an actual living, breathing NHL team visits the Garden on Saturday night (7, NESN) as the Islanders (16-9-3) come for their first game against the Bruins in 2017-18. Highly coveted free-agent-to-be John Tavares (17 goals, 14 assists) is playing the best hockey of his life and we'll also be able to see some old friends in Johnny Boychuk and Dennis Seidenberg who are defensemen for New York. The Isles lost 4-3 in Pittsburgh (16-11-3) tonight but they are 6-3-1 in their last 10 games while Boston improved to 7-3-0 in their last 10.

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