The Hat Trick: Utah Hockey Club Battles For Hard Fought Point Against Vegas Golden Knights
Nov 3, 2024, 12:07 AM
LAS VEGAS – Despite another overtime loss, the Utah Hockey Club battled at the fortress in Las Vegas and emerged with a well-deserved point on the road. While there are still quite a few things to fix, this young roster showed grit as they forced the Vegas Golden Knights to their first OT period at home.
Here are the key takeaways from Utah’s Overtime loss in Sin City.
Utah Hockey Club needs to be better at clearing their own zone
Throughout the early parts of the season, the Utah Hockey Club has struggled at times to clear their own zone. Whether its high-pressure situations, lower pressure situations, or quick dump in plays by the opposition, Utah has a hard time getting the puck out the D-zone.
Turnovers & an inability to clear their own zone has been somewhat of an issue early on for the Utah Hockey Club this season & is why Vegas is back in this game tonight.
Have to be better at breaking out of their own zone or simply clearing the puck across their own blue line.
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) November 3, 2024
Against Vegas, turnovers and an inability to clear the frozen biscuit were a major issue and the primary reasons the Knights were able to get back into the game in the second period.
Shortly after taking a fairly commanding 2-0 lead, Utah failed to break out of their own zone, turned the puck over, missed the Vegas forward on the backdoor and the Knights wasted no time.
Pav got us going!!! 🚪 pic.twitter.com/G1kdbFZagh
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) November 3, 2024
As for the buzzer-beater goal that tied it at 2-2, Utah yet again turned it over, gave Vegas too much space and missed a trailing forward who stuffed a juicy rebound off of Ingram’s pad into the back of the net.
LADY LUCK SHINES IN VEGAS ⏰
The Golden Knights beat the clock and score with ONE SECOND to go in the second period pic.twitter.com/63DN15fc2f
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 3, 2024
Not only does Utah need to be more aware close to the net of sneaky trailing forwards, but they have to be better at clearing the puck. It doesn’t always have to be a full on break out but get they need to get the puck over the blue line and regroup.
At times, players either don’t get enough on it, try to wrap it around the boards but an opposing player knocks it down, or they simply turn it over on a poor ricochet attempt. That’s not going to cut it. Either smash it hard enough off the boards so that there’s no question of a turnover or flip it high into the neutral zone.
Too often Utah has struggled with this early in the season. That cannot continue.
Utah tied it late, but they need to get more shots on net against quality teams like Vegas
While Utah did lead for a good portion of the game against Vegas, their inability to match the Knights in terms of shots on goal eventually caught up to them.
Sure, when you score on three of 16 chances, that’s fantastic. But when you only have 10 shots on goal through 40 minutes and the opposition has 25 with three goals in a row to steal a 2-0 lead away from you, it can make it really difficult to remain competitive.
“Don’t want to have to have ten shots through two periods. But they do a good job. They make it hard to play against them, so you’ve got to give them credit. But for sure, we’re not looking to have ten shots on goal through two periods,” Alexander Kerfoot said.
When Utah is thriving the most offensively, they’re putting shots on net, getting bodies in front and crashing hard. In games where they’ve gone away from that, they’ve struggled to produce the right results (Ottawa, Colorado). But similar to the goal from Kerfoot that tied the game against Vegas, that seems to be Utah’s most successful offensive formula.
“I think we can still create in a lot of different ways. I still think that we are finding our way offensively. For sure, it starts from the inside out from a lot of teams. Teams like this who are very good defensively. It’s hard to break them. So, you’ve got to get pucks to the net, you’ve got to get traffic, rebounds, second chances, that type of thing,” Kerfoot added.
Heck of an effort by Bjugstad to get a shot off and Kerf crashes hard to clean up the rebound and tie the game.
Utah needs more of this. Just get pucks on net, get bodies in the way and crash. https://t.co/K3MXYcfQ75
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) November 3, 2024
Again, it’s great to score at such a high conversion rate. But consider the number of goals they might score with more shots on net. Rather than waiting for the perfect shot to open up and making one too many passes, they just need to let it rip sometimes and try to generate opportunities that way.
“When we play against a team that clogs the net front, we have a tendency to go back to trying to make one more play and one more play. So, we’re not there yet but I am happy about the progression,” head coach Andre Tourigny said.
All things considered, Utah Hockey Club battled hard and secured a point from the second-best team in the west
During losses, it’s really easy to be overly critical and focus on what went wrong. Not to say that Utah was excellent against the Golden Knights, but they were the first team to push them to OT at home and left the building with a point for their efforts.
It’s important to realize that Utah is a young team. They’re going to lose to more experienced squads in situations like these as they continue to learn and develop. That’s ok.
Yes, this team is actively trying to take the next step in the rebuild but it takes time. As one of the youngest teams in the NHL, these are the moments that will define them. The moments that a few years down the road they’ll be able to draw from, and instead, win in these types of situations.
Alexander Kerfoot: “It was good that we fought back and got a point out of it…it’s good that we stuck with it…we didn’t break and ended up getting a point out of it…we’re a young team still finding our way…we want to keep making steps and playing the right way.”#UtahHC pic.twitter.com/KH29xwnXOB
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) November 3, 2024
“It was good that we fought back and got a point out of it…it’s good that we stuck with it…we didn’t break and ended up getting a point out of it…we’re a young team still finding our way…we want to keep making steps and playing the right way,” Kerfoot said.
Like Kerfoot mentioned, Utah did a great job at fighting back. Rather than allowing themselves to be broken by three unanswered goals, they found a way to tie it up and secure a point in OT. They also found a way to score three goals with noticeably fewer shots and compete with a team that could challenge for the cup this season.
Overall, Utah is showing a lot of good signs early. While that does come along with growing pains, they’ve demonstrated a lot of fight, made corrections and are not too far away from being a really competitive team.
Alexander Kerfoot: “It was good that we fought back and got a point out of it…it’s good that we stuck with it…we didn’t break and ended up getting a point out of it…we’re a young team still finding our way…we want to keep making steps and playing the right way.”#UtahHC pic.twitter.com/KH29xwnXOB
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) November 3, 2024
Moments like tonight are what build character, identity and experience towards eventually competing for a Stanley Cup.
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Utah Hockey Schedule
The Utah Hockey Club will now continue their road trip against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday. The game can be viewed on SEG+. Fans can also tune in on air on the KSL Sports APP or on 97.5 and 1280 The Zone. Click here for the full schedule.
