Arizona Coyotes rookie Tobias Rieder earned his place in franchise history Monday night.
The forward became the first rookie and second player in Coyotes history to score two short-handed goals in one game. But Rieder’s feat is made even more impressive by the fact that his tallies against the Edmonton Oilers came on the same penalty kill.
With Arizona’s Shane Doan in the box for roughing David Perron in the final seconds of the first period, the Oilers began the second period on the power play. The Oilers led by one goal at the time, with the Coyotes still looking to get on the score sheet.
That’s when Rieder stripped the puck from Oilers star forward Taylor Hall in the neutral zone, leading to a clean breakaway and his first shortie of the night.
Under a minute later, Martin Hanzel blocked a shot from Nikita Nikitin and found Rieder in the neutral zone. Rieder pulled a second move on Viktor Fasth and beat him from the far side, off the post and into the net.
Rieder originally was selected by the Oilers in the fourth round of the 2011 draft. He never played a game for Edmonton, though, before he was traded to Arizona in 2013, but he certainly showed his former club what it was missing.
The 21-year old forward was still shocked by what he had accomplished following the game.
“I obviously wasn’t expecting anything like that,” Rieder said, per NHL.com. “It is just amazing that we scored two short-handed goals. That was really exciting, I’m not sure if I really realize what happened yet. It’s pretty hard to even score goals on the power play in this league, let alone to get two short-handed that quickly.”
The Coyotes used the momentum from Rieder’s goals to pick up two more in the second period en route to securing a 5-2 victory over the Oilers, ending their three-game losing streak while extending Edmonton’s skid to 10 games.
Thumbnail photo via Perry Nelson/USA TODAY Sports Images
