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NEWARK, N.J. — Before the season, general manager Bill Armstrong offered a new fan base a warning: Some nights the Utah Hockey Club will look like world beaters; others, it will look like a team of youngsters.
The latter showed up in New Jersey on Monday.
Utah Hockey Club's early-season magic ran out on Monday in a 3-0 defeat to the New Jersey Devils.
There goes 82-0.
The Club came into the game as the surprise team in the league, having scored a league-high 16 goals over its first three games as it raced out to a 3-0 record. The key to that offense, head coach André Tourigny said, has been Utah's ability to get inside ice and take advantage of its speed to create quality chances. Those didn't come on Monday.
"That's what opens up the next play," Tourigny said. "If you don't get an opportunity on the inside, then you become a perimeter team. You're easy to play against."
Now, Tourigny admitted, he has the film to prove just that.
"It's a little bit like in football. If you just throw the ball and don't run the ball, at some point, you're predictable," he said.
Utah's inability to get bodies in dangerous positions on the offensive end allowed New Jersey to sit on passing lanes and consistently disrupt the Hockey Club's attack. Suddenly, a team averaging over 5 goals per game couldn't get one.
And once the penalties started piling up, the game slipped away. Utah committed seven penalties, with two of New Jersey's three goals scored on the power play.
"That's something we'll address. That's something our group knows," Touringy said.
Seamus Casey gave the Devils a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 1:14 of the second period.
The rookie defenseman forced a turnover at the Utah blue and then went unchecked as he skated down the slot and fired it past Utah HC goalie Karel Vejmelka, who got the start to give Connor Ingram a rest day.
The second power-play goal wrapped things up for New Jersey. In the third period, Jack Hughes sent a pass inside to an unmarked Nico Hischier, who snapped it in to give New Jersey a 3-0 lead.
"We got in the box in the second period, took us out of our rhythm and from there, we chased the game," Tourigny said.
Indeed, and they never caught it.
It was a game that came with some lessons. Utah didn't score because it refused to put pressure on the Devils inside, and it was in the penalty box for large portions of the game because of mostly bad positioning and mental mistakes.
"There's a lot of high stick and stuff like that," Tourigny said. "We need to move our feet, work on body positioning. We need to be better, much better."
That's something he was preaching before Monday's game. Yes, the 3-0 start was fun and the overtime wins were thrilling, but wins tend to mask flaws. Nothing was hiding the miscues on Monday afternoon.
"We need to keep pushing forward, keep getting better," he said. "It's a race for improvement in the NHL, so the race is on."
And Utah might be continuing it without one of its key players. Defenseman Sean Durzi left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury and did not return. Vladislav Kolyachonok took over first-pairing minutes with Mikhail Sergachev in Durzi's absence.
Tourigny didn't have an update on Durzi's status immediately followinng the game. He didn't the injury had much to do with the outcome either.
"I don't think we played really well without (Durzi), but I don't think it's on any of the other guys," he said. "We were already sliding at that moment."
