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SALT LAKE CITY — Clayton Keller's tip attempt went just wide and Dylan Guenther's blast on the move hit hard against Dallas goalie Casey DeSmith's pad. The final minutes were hectic at the Delta Center Monday as the Utah Hockey Club desperately tried to salvage a result.
The home team came up empty, though, as Dallas beat Utah 3-2 to snap the Club's eight-game point streak.
But it wasn't the third period — where Utah got a goal from Barrett Hayton to provide some hope down the stretch — that was top of the team's mind after the loss. No, it was the middle stanza when Dallas scored twice to take control of the game.
"I think we had, I don't know, 12, 15 or eight minutes where we were not aggressive enough defensively, which led to them possessing the puck a lot, and we could not change from there," head coach André Tourigny said.
Those minutes led to the loss. Dallas outshot Utah 16-6 in the second period, leading to similar goals from Roope Hintz and Jamie Benn to give the Stars a 3-1 lead.
It wasn't the first time a poor second period has hurt the Hockey Club this season — especially at home.
The Minnesota Wild outscored Utah 2-0 in the second leading to a shoot-out win earlier this month. The very same Stars team got a 2-1 win over Utah on Dec. 2, with both goals coming in the middle of the game. The Edmonton Oilers scored three times in the second period leading to an overtime win at the Delta Center.
That's a worrisome trend.
"We had a great first period, the second period wasn't great, tried to fight back in the third, but that's a good team can't take a period off," said Nick Bjugsted. "That's kind of what we did in the second so you can claw back a couple goals down in the third, and hope for the best. But in order to win those games against teams like that, you've got to play a full 60."
Dallas and Utah came into the game tied with 38 points. With the win, Dallas is now in the final playoff spot and has played one less game than Utah; that made the loss sting that much more.
"We knew coming into this game, it's a four-point game, a division game. Obviously, those matchups are huge," said Hayton, who scored for the second straight night. "I thought we did a great job in the first period. We were urgent, we were intense, we were on the ball, playing the right way, and you just can't afford those lapses against good teams. That was what our second period was."
For him, enough is enough.
"It's gonna be something we have to take as a learning experience right now," Hayton said. "We're all pissed off about it and disappointed and frustrated in ourselves; and yeah, that's a big game, and sucks for it to go that way."
The team was playing on the second night of a back-to-back and its third game in four nights. Tourigny, though, was hesitant to blame the lull on fatigue. For one, there will be other tough stretches and he doesn't want a built-in excuse; secondly, the energy was there to start and finish the game.
"We all talked about the same period, which is totally truly unfair, but in the third period, we had a hell of a pushback," he said.
The team would prefer to not need that type of repsone.
Hayton scored deflected an Ian Cole blast with 8:21 remaining to cut Dallas's lead to a single goal, setting the stage for a chaotic finish. Utah outshot Dallas 9-4 in the third as it tried to find a result.
Now Utah will head into its three-day Christmas break wondering what's causing the lulls.
"I don't know," Hayton said. "That's what we're going to have to sit down and talk about. I think we have to figure out what causes that. Obviously, it's all like a mental thing at the end of the day. It's not like there's anything crazy, but the mentality we have to figure out. I think kind of that whole game against Anaheim and that second period tonight is something that we need to dig in. We have a couple days off to think about it and figure it out and talk together."
