The Hat Trick: Utah Hockey Club Flounders Late, Sharks Get First Win Of Season

Oct 28, 2024, 11:23 PM

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SALT LAKE CITY – In somewhat unbelievable fashion, the Utah Hockey Club forfeited a late three-goal lead on home ice and lost to the winless San Jose Sharks in overtime 5-4. Smelling blood in the water, the Sharks scored three times in under two minutes to level the game late and delivered the finishing blow in OT for their first win of the season.

Here are the key takeaways from Utah’s fourth-straight loss.

The physicality was better, but still needs work for Utah Hockey Club

After struggling in terms of physicality for most of the first nine games, the Utah Hockey Club made it an emphasis to be more physical against San Jose and there were some signs of improvement.

They finished a lot of checks, hit the forecheck really hard, won some battles in front of the net, and Liam O’Brien even dropped the gloves.

Full Story: UHC’s Liam O’Brien Hypes Up Crowed, Dropping The Gloves Versus San Jose

Was it perfect? No. They were still outhit 29-21 but there was at least some progress. It was much more obvious that Utah was trying to be physical and is a step in the right direction. But, if they want to get back to winning ways, it simply has to better and they cannot lose the hitting battle every single night.

Goaltending has been questionable at times

Before the disaster situation at the end of the third period, the goaltending was great. Connor Ingram looked confident, made some big saves, had a high save percentage and looked poised to be one of three stars on the night.

While it’s not entirely his fault by any means, the puck still has to go past the netminder last and yet again, Utah allowed five goals for a total of 37 against this season.

Overall, both the second and third goals were just poor from the team as a whole.

On the second, they lost a defensive zone faceoff, nobody stepped to the shooter in time, Ingram gave up a big rebound and two unmarked forwards crashed the net which led to an easy tap-in. As for the third, it’s another poor defensive zone performance and Ingram was beaten high from a distance over his glove side.

Coming into tonight, the goaltenders were hovering around a .888 save percentage. Against the Sharks, that’s exactly what Ingram posted with 40 saves on 45 shots.

The number of shots itself is unacceptable, which is more on the defense and forwards, but you’re not going to win many games with save percentages below 90%.

Short stretches are dooming the Utah Hockey Club right now

There’s really no sugarcoating this one, but the Utah Hockey Club has struggled significantly in key stretches during their losing streak.

Against Ottawa, it was an eight-minute stretch where they allowed four goals. Against the Colorado Avalanche it was a four-minute stretch in the second period where the Avs scored twice, and against San Jose, it only took the Sharks less than the two minutes to score three times and force OT.

While it’s hard to point out exact reasons for those poor stretches, they’re a few things in common. Utah takes their foot off the gas, struggles to defend when the opposing team has an extra player (peanlty or pulled goalie for an extra attacker), gets taken out of their own game and has yet to respond.

“Before moving on, we need to unpack that. That’s not who we are. That’s not who we want to be. At home in front of our fans. Give credit to San Jose like I said, but that’s not who we want to be,” head coach Andre Tourigny said.

Like coach said, they need to figure out what’s going on. Losing three games in a row isn’t that big of a deal. But losing four in a row and to a winless Sharks team in that kind of fashion is alarming.

Utah Hockey Schedule

The Utah Hockey Club will continue their two-game homestand against the Calgary Flames on Wednesday. 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. 

Cole Bagley is the Utah Hockey Club insider for KSL Sports. Keep up with him on X here. You can hear Cole break down the team on KSL Sports Zone and KSL 5 TV.

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The Hat Trick: Utah Hockey Club Flounders Late, Sharks Get First Win Of Season