Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- The Utah Hockey Club faced a tough defeat against Ottawa on Tuesday, with a crucial eight-minute span in the first period leading to a 4-0 loss.
- Despite dominating in several metrics such as shot attempts and faceoffs, Utah was unable to translate these advantages onto the scoreboard.
- Coach André Tourigny acknowledged the team's missed opportunities and defensive lapses during critical moments, including a four-on-four situation and a power play that allowed Ottawa to seize a commanding lead.
SALT LAKE CITY — It was a bad eight minutes.
Ottawa scored four goals in the span of 8:09 in the first period en route to a 4-0 win over the Utah Hockey Club on Tuesday at the Delta Center. It was Utah's first loss of the season at home.
As for the rest of the game … well, it was mostly controlled by the home team.
Utah had 10 more shots on goal — even getting the first eight of the game during that decisive opening period — and generated consistent scoring chances all night. It won more faceoffs and had more power plays, too.
In most metrics, it looked like Utah was the better team. Except for that pesky scoreboard.
"I don't think we played bad," head coach André Tourigny said. "I think we gave up four goals and we lost the game and we could not score, but I think we had a lot of opportunity. They scored on their first opportunity, and then we forced stuff."
A promising start flipped when Utah's Jack McBain and Ottawa's Noah Gregor were both called for roughing, making it four-on-four hockey for two minutes.
By the end of those two minutes, it was Ottawa 2, Utah 0.
Drake Batherson and Claude Giroux both took advantage of the open space and beat Connor Ingram to give the Senators the sudden lead.
Later in the period, Robert Burtuzzo was called for a holding penalty; and it took a mere seconds for Ottawa to capitalize on the power play, with Ridly Greig scoring an unassisted goal.
The Senators weren't done yet.
In the last seconds before intermission, Brady Tkachuk rebounded a missed shot and fired it past Ingram for Ottawa's fourth goal of the period.
So what happened?
"Just little mistakes on the coverage," Utah captain Clayton Keller said. "The four-on-four one, kind of just losing the guy in front, just those little mistakes can determine the game sometimes."
It certainly did on Tuesday, wasting what otherwise would have been a strong game by Utah.
"I don't like our play at four-on-four since the beginning of the season … we gave up (power play) goal, and we give a goal in the faceoff. The rest? We didn't give up much. And we have a lot of opportunity, a lot of momentum," Tourigny said.
Touriny replaced Ingram with Karel Vajmelka to start the second period, and he didn't allow a goal. Even better, Utah didn't allow many quality chances.
The problem was neither did Ottawa's Anton Forsberg, who turned away all 31 of Utah's shots on goal. Tourigny, though, would have liked to see Utah challenge him a little more.
"The best opportunities we had, we missed the net," he said. "We had grade-A chances where we didn't hit the net. Tons of respect for their goalie — played a good game, made a few key saves, but I think we didn't test him enough."
Tourigny would have liked to see Utah put more traffic in front of the net for rebound chances or deflections. Or, at the very least, make him make a save. In the second period, Josh Doan got free for a one-on-one chance but skied the shot.
That was far from the only missed chance.
"Whether it's a breakaway, or it's a slot shot, or whatever, we didn't hit the net," Tourigny said. "So he (Forsberg) was good, but how good? We don't know, because we didn't hit the net."
