The Utah Hockey Club’s eight-game point streak officially came to an end on Monday as the Dallas Stars took them down by a score of 3-2. It marks another loss inside Delta Center as fans watched their team enter the Christmas break at a low point. Here are some takeaways from Monday night’s game.
Continued Struggles On the Third Line
Utah’s third line of Nick Bjugstad, Lawson Crouse, and Matias Maccelli has become a problem. A big one too. While Crouse assisted on a goal during Utah’s Dec. 12 game against the Colorado Avalanche, Maccelli and Bjugstad haven’t gotten points since Dec. 2. No one on the line has scored a goal since Nov. 29 against the Edmonton Oilers.
The production from the line has been unacceptable. All three players are playing some of the worst hockey of their careers. While the line looked better on Monday night, there were still lapses where they looked ordinary causing head coach André Tourigny to shorten the bench and their ice time.
“I think they had a really good first period,” Tourigny said. “I think in the second they were a little bit like everybody else. I think I tried to cut the bench in the third so they didn’t have a lot of looks because I tried to do different stuff and put a little bit of speed and we double-shifted Cools (Logan Cooley) a little bit. I think they did good stuff in the first part of the game.”
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It’s even more confusing when you consider the fact that this isn’t the first season this line has played together. Last season, the three of them played together on a line. Yet something hasn’t been working this season for the trio. Bjugstad knows this and understands they need to find their identity over the Christmas break.
“When you’re not scoring as a line, you try to figure out what to do,” Bjugstad said. “For us, it’s just simplifying. We played together for a couple of years now. It’s kind of refinding our identity and that kind of comes with hard work. We gotta keep working at it.”
Hopefully, for Bjugstad, Maccelli, and Crouse, the three-day break provides a time for them to reflect on what they can perhaps do differently. As Tourigny said, the line looked way better on Monday than in prior games but the offense needs to come, otherwise, a change will have to be considered.
A Great Two Days for Barrett Hayton
If there’s one Utah player who has looked the best in the past two days, it’s been Barrett Hayton. The forward has two goals in his past two games which ended his scoring drought and put him at a career milestone. He now has 100 points in his 242 NHL games.
While the milestone is a big one, Hayton was more concerned about the team’s loss on Monday. It’s a great moment for him but the team’s success is more of his concern.
“It’s nice to produce and score and take pride in doing that,” Hayton said. “At the same time, you want to be playing good hockey, and that’s what I’ve been striving for this season. It’s nice scoring back to back, but the bigger thing is playing the right way, and the biggest thing that stings today in this game was losing.”
Hayton’s offense has been streaky this season. At times like at the beginning of the year, he’s scored in bunches and has looked really good. At other times, he’s been ice-cold and has had numerous stretches without a point.
“Maybe (it’s a) coincidence,” Hayton said. “I think obviously you score and produce when you’re playing well and playing the right way. It all kind of comes full circle like that.”
There’s obviously some sort of upside with Hayton. It’s obvious he can be a good player in the league. He is only a couple of seasons removed from a 43-point campaign. Utah re-signed him this past offseason for a reason. However, coincidence or not, Hayton is on a good scoring streak right now and hopefully, he can continue that into the final games of 2024.
Utah’s Long Point Streak Comes to An End
With the loss in regulation, Utah’s point streak has ended at eight games. In those eight games, the team only lost twice in a shootout and won the other six. They have crawled their way back into playoff contention, now only two points back of the Stars for the final wild card spot.
However, there are some underlying issues. The first is that Utah hasn’t won a game at the Delta Center in regulation since Nov. 13. It’s become more and more of a problem. Overall, Utah has thrived on the road going 11-6-2 but have struggled tremendously at home with a 5-6-4 record. You need a decent record in both categories to make the playoffs.
“There’s a desire from everybody to deliver for our fans,” Tourigny said. “It’s a pressure we put on ourselves, certainly, but it’s not an unfair pressure. It’s a healthy one. We want to be at the level of how our fans expect.”
The second issue is that Utah hasn’t been playing well in the second period. A lot of bad lapses have led to some bad goals. The team knows the problem is the second period despite good play in the first period. It happened against the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday as well. The team has gotten to the boiling point and it is the main takeaway from Monday’s loss.
“I think that second period is the learning lesson,” Hayton said. “Coming into this game, it’s a four-point game, it’s a division game, those matchups are huge. 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. It’s gonna be something we have to take as a learning experience. Right now, we’re all pissed off about it and disappointed and frustrated in ourselves. That’s a big game and it sucks for it to go that way.”
Even veterans like Bjugstad understand where Utah’s issues have stemmed from in the past couple of games. If Utah wants to win hockey games, they need to play a full 60 minutes of hockey.
“We had a great first period, the second period wasn’t great, and we tried to fight back in that third but that’s a good team,” Bjugstad said. “You can’t take a period off. That’s kind of what we did in the second so you can claw back a couple of goals down in the third and hope for the best. But in order to win those games against teams like that, you got to play for the 60 for sure.”
Utah did miss a chance to get into a wild card spot. If they had won on Monday, they would’ve occupied the second wild card spot instead of the Stars. However, terrible giveaways like the one that led to Roope Hintz’s goal in the second doomed Utah.
There will be chances to try to get back into grabbing a playoff spot. However, they now will have the next three days off due to the Christmas break. It provides the team with a chance to settle down, take a mental reset, and try to figure out what went wrong in the past two games.
“It’s not like a mental thing at the end of the day,” Hayton said. “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 into. Obviously, we have a couple of days off to think about it, and figure it out and talk together.”
It also provides Utah with some much-needed rest. While they do have some home games coming up, especially in January, they will play some tough teams. Their division foes: the Avalanche come to Salt Lake City along with the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Florida Panthers. On top of that, Utah will take a northern Canadian road trip to visit the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers along with making a pit stop to play the Seattle Kraken. Both the Flames and the Oilers occupy a playoff spot.
“It would have been nice going in with a win,” Bjugstad said. “We’ll take the three days off and kind of recoup and take it to our advantage and get some rest.”
For now, Utah enters the Christmas break with a record of 16-12-6 in their first 34 games. They are fifth in the Central Division with 38 points. After the break, they’ll return to the Delta Center to play the Avalanche. The Avalanche are 21-15-0 and are coming off a 5-2 win over the Seattle Kraken.
