Momentum in hockey can change in a single second. At one point in time, you can be dominating the game. You blink and the next second, your opponent is scoring goals like it’s nothing. That’s what happened to the Utah Hockey Club as the Ottawa Senators stole any energy they had after scoring four straight goals at the end of the first period, handing the team their first loss at the Delta Center. Utah is now 4-2-1 to begin the season. Here are some takeaways from Tuesday’s 4-0 game.
Collapse at Four-on-Four
Utah actually had a really good start to the game. In the first five minutes, they had around five shots and looked like they were going to dominate the game. However, that all changed when the two teams got matching penalties for roughing. Josh Norris found Drake Batherson in front of the net on a tic-tac-toe play and scored.
Not even two minutes later on the same matching penalties, Claude Giroux made a nice move with his skate to get the puck in front of him and rip it behind Connor Ingram making it 2-0, stunning Utah. Two more goals by the end of the first period, including a Ridly Greig power-play goal, made it 4-0 Senators.
The four-goal deficit was too big for Utah to make any form of comeback. They couldn’t even manage one as Anton Forsberg was lights out for the Senators. He made 31 saves against Utah and was named the first star of the game.
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It was clear that something wasn’t working right during four-on-four. Utah was giving the Senators too much room to work with. The two goals that came on the matching minors saw two or more Senators be defended by only one Utah player while the other three were behind their opponents. That leaves the goaltender to try and stop a two-on-one, which isn’t the easiest to do.
While Karel Vejmelka looked good in the last two periods not letting in a single goal, Ingram is not solely to blame for the loss. The defense was poor but even then, it’s hard to blame the depleted blue line who are missing Sean Durzi and John Marino.
Either way, defensive work at four-on-four is something the team will most likely work on during practice to try to stop teams from exploiting that weakness. It was the main reason that the Senators had a four-goal first period.
Mikhail Sergachev Is a Workhorse
There’s no doubt Mikhail Sergachev’s job has gotten a lot harder over the past couple of weeks due to the mounting injuries on the blue line. That has resulted in his ice time growing monumentally. He is averaging around 27 minutes of ice time each game which amounts to just a little over 40% of the team’s total ice time.
He’s been relied on like a number-one defenseman, which is what he was expected to be when he was acquired by Utah from the Tampa Bay Lightning over the summer. It’s what he wanted to be too. Now, he’s being sent out by head coach André Tourigny nearly every other shift to help stop Utah’s opponents.
Sergachev has been especially good at blocking shots. The Russian defenseman has been blocking almost every single shot that he could possibly block. That includes Tuesday’s game against the Senators where he took a particularly hard shot to the chest.
Sergachev has almost been injured a couple of times including once where he skipped a couple of shifts to shake off the pain. However, thankfully for Utah, he’s played every game this season so far and has been a crucial part of the team.
Rocky Mountain Rivalry Begins Thursday
A famous saying from Tourigny is that he’s always looking at just tomorrow. By the time the players wake up on Wednesday, they’ll only have until the next day to prepare for a game that is on most Utah fans’ calendars: their first game against their Central Division rival: the Colorado Avalanche. The potential “rocky mountain rivalry” could be a good one. The Avalanche are the closest team to Utah and have an elite core of Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen, and Devon Toews.
The two teams have had a little bit of a rivalry before. When Utah’s players were with the Coyotes, they were consistently facing the Avalanche in 2019 and 2020. The Avalanche knocked the Coyotes out of playoff contention in the final weeks of the regular season in 2019 and eliminated them in the first round of the playoffs in 2020. Now up north in Salt Lake City, that rivalry could not just come back but be even stronger as Utah now has an elite core of their own.
It should be an exciting game as the Avalanche will make their first trip to Delta Center on Thursday. They are currently 3-4-0 but shouldn’t be taken lightly as a good part of their team has been out due to injury. They most recently beat the Seattle Kraken 3-2 on Wednesday and are seeking their fourth straight win.
