Sidney Crosby delivers a vintage moment with OT winner against Utah Hockey Club

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Hockey Club head coach André Tourigny admitted that seeing a player like Sidney Crosby take the ice would be a fun moment for the new fan base.

"It should be exciting," he said. "Sid's been the face of the franchise for a long, long time, and face of the league for a long, long time. So I think it'll be cool for our fans to see him play."

In hindsight, he probably wishes it would have been just a little less exciting.

With a little more than a minute remaining in overtime on Wednesday, Crosby swung to the front of the net and put in a beauty of a backhander to give the Pittsburgh Penguins a 3-2 overtime win over the Utah Hockey Club at the Delta Center.

"Just found a way to tuck it in," Crosby said.

He's spent a career doing just that; it was Crosby's 95th career game-winning goal, and he's now 1-for-1 playing in the league's latest arena.

"It's nice to score in this building," he said. "It's a new building, and a great atmosphere here. Fun to get one."

But just a bit less fun for the home team.

It was Utah's third straight loss (though with a point for the OT loss it did reach 50 points on the season), and it came via a familiar script.

Utah lost an early lead in the second period after letting the Penguins camp out in their offensive zone, continuing a season-long trend of poor second stanzas.

And then Utah lost another lead in the third when Pittsbugh's Erik Karlsson beat Connor Ingram short side. The Club has been outscored 6-1 in third periods during its current three-game losing streak.

After Wednesday's game, the team may feel like luck is breaking against them.

"They had one (good) chance in the third," Tourigny said. "We won't be any better than that. They had one grade-A chance; they scored on a C chance."

In the third, Tourigny said Utah doubled Pittsburgh on high-quality looks, but none of them found the net.

"I think we generate good offense," he said. "I think we need to be more opportunistic."

None of those stats made the loss sting any less.

"It's a tough one, obviously, but I feel like it happened before multiple times, and we haven't learned from it," defenseman Mikhail Sergachev said.

Sergachev made his return after missing five games and was immediately productive. He went top-shelf on a power-play to open the scoring in the first period, but that was far from his mind after another defeat.

What will it take for the team to learn from the losses?

"Honestly, I don't know. I don't know what it's going to take, but I think the leadership group and the coaches are doing everything we can to try to turn it around," he said. "We can't be too negative about it, but we can't be just 'whatever, next one' — can't be like that."

He said the team will meet on Thursday to discuss what needs to be done to take the next step, but added that he wants to "play the right way," and that hopefully "it gets contagious."

"He's won before, so he knows what it takes," Touigny said. "He believes in that group, and he wants to win."

But thanks to some Kid named Crosby, Utah couldn't find a win on Wedneday.

"It's funny, because he always plays like he has a chip on his shoulder," Tourigny said of Crosby. "He always wants to prove something."

By doing so, a new fan base got to see what all the fuss was about.

"It was great," Crosby said of playing in Utah. "Atmosphere was great. It was a lot of fun to play here, and you can tell that the people are excited here to have a team."

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