The Utah Hockey Club’s mini road trip to the Great Lakes area ended on Friday with a 4-3 overtime loss to the Chicago Blackhawks. While the team managed to come back in the third period after a horrible second period, the Blackhawks played spoiler in overtime. Utah managed to walk away getting three of four points on the trip. Here are some takeaways from Friday’s game.
Nick Schmaltz Continues Point Streak Against Former Team
Who else but Nick Schmaltz to get the scoring started against the Blackhawks? Less than a minute into the period, Logan Cooley tried whacking the puck in while he was in front of the net. The puck managed to get away where Schmaltz unloaded a rebound that got past Spencer Knight, giving Utah an early lead.
Schmaltz is now up to six points in his past six games, including two goals in his past two games. This season, he has 14 goals, which is pretty good considering all his goals have come after Utah’s Nov. 30 game against the Vegas Golden Knights. However, if you want an even more advanced stat, Schmaltz now has 17 points in 16 games against the Blackhawks in his career.
Related: Olli Määttä Turned Opportunity With Utah Into an Extension
His career has revolved around Chicago after playing youth hockey for the Chicago Mission and being drafted and playing with the Blackhawks during the first couple of seasons of his NHL career. There’s usually something about players playing in their hometown or against former teams. It happens all the time with Clayton Keller and the St. Louis Blues. On a lesser note, it’s the same with Schmaltz and the Blackhawks.
A Defensive Collapse in the Second, a Resilient Effort in the Third
If you’re looking at where it all went wrong for Utah on Friday night, there’s no other place to look than the second period. Although the team had a strong start to the first period putting good pressure on the Blackhawks, that all stopped when Connor Bedard stripped the puck away from Sean Durzi and hit the crossbar. While Bedard’s shot didn’t go in, Wyatt Kaiser capitalized on the opportunity and scored to tie the game.
Another bad play by Durzi led to Ilya Mikheyev stepping up to the net and tucking home the puck on a backhanded shot. A penalty shot goal by Frank Nazar put the icing on the cake as Utah’s second period came to an end.
Some credit has to be given to Spencer Knight who was terrific against Utah, making 36 saves. Knight was acquired earlier this week from the Florida Panthers and has shown in his two appearances with the Blackhawks that he’s their goaltender now and in the future. He made some key saves, including robbing Schmaltz of his second goal of the game with a great glove save.
While Utah kept battling back in the third period, including a goal from John Marino, which was his first with the team, and another one from Keller, the Blackhawks’ big second period ultimately doomed them. Even against some of the worst teams in the league, you can’t take a night off. That was demonstrated earlier in the season against the San Jose Sharks where Utah blew a three-goal lead in the third period.
“I think everyone is pretty sick of losing,” Marino said. “We expect to win every game and that’s the mentality that we have. You learn from every game. Take the mistakes and move on. It’s huge for playoff standings with how tight the race is so we’ll take that.”
While Utah did manage to get a point out of the game, they could’ve gotten two if it wasn’t for a horrible second period. A problem Utah has had is playing a full 60 minutes of hockey. Defensive collapses have also been a problem, but not with a fully healthy blue line. The team will need to address both issues during a two-day break before their next game on Monday.
Either way, the good thing that can be taken out of the game is that Utah battled back. They had a great third period, scoring two goals and figuring out Knight. While they couldn’t stop Bedard from scoring the overtime winner, it was still a good sign to see Utah not give up and continue to play despite being down by two to begin the final period.
“I think our guys were resilient,” head coach André Tourigny said. “I like the fact we were composed. We were resilient. We stuck together and we didn’t get out of the structure or try to do too much by ourselves. We played as a team. And I like the way we’re responding to the adversity.”
Being resilient has been a trait of Utah all season. Despite adversity, whether it’s injuries or down by goals in a game, most of the time, the team has responded well to those types of challenges. While in the beginning, playing as a complete unit was a struggle at some points, that’s not the case now as you can see every player lay and sacrifice the body on each shift. Those are traits of playoff teams, and you can see Utah starting to learn that.
3 of 4 Points Earned on the Road Trip
On their two-day, two-game road trip, Utah actually fared pretty well considering they had two games in 24 hours. They earned three of the four points available in the two games. It keeps them within striking distance of the second wild card spot in the Western Conference. However, the loss to the Blackhawks is just the third loss for Utah since the end of the 4 Nations Face-Off break. At this point, the team needs every point they can get, so while one point is nice, they expected two.
“It’s huge to get a point out of that and have three out of four points on this road trip but we expect better,” Marino said.
Back-to-back games is always hard, especially when it’s on the road. While the team expects better of themselves, they stay in the hunt, which is the main goal. Tourigny might’ve wanted the win, but he’ll certainly take the point gained from the overtime loss.
“We need points at this point,” Tourigny said. “It’s a back-to-back. I think we stayed in the hunt; we’ll stay right there, and we’ll take that.”
It wasn’t the best night to lose either. The Vancouver Canucks beat the Minnesota Wild 3-1 putting Utah back within three points of the wild card spot and the Blues won 4-3 over the Anaheim Ducks, which puts them ahead of Utah again as well. At least they got the point, which keeps them in the chase.
Here is your daily look at the Western Conference wild card battle after Utah’s 4-3 OT loss to Chicago.
— Chase Beardsley (@ChaseBeardsley_) March 8, 2025
Both the Canucks and the Blues won tonight which means the Canucks reclaim the wild card spot. Utah is still three points back. 19 games remain…#UtahHC pic.twitter.com/4OlS25bOig
Now as we’re 19 games away from the end of the regular season, Utah is still in the hunt, which puts them in a good spot considering the injuries they faced at the beginning of the season and that this team is still young and technically just coming out of a rebuild. They’re still a growing team, and as previously mentioned, as of late, playing in these meaningful games will teach the young players a lot.
“Our team is a young team who needs to keep growing,” Tourigny said. “The stretch we’re in, it’s adversity and challenging, we like it…We will learn a ton in the next couple of weeks. That’s the position we want to be in. We believe in our guys.”
A lot of these next games will be teaching moments as most of them are against playoff teams, including their very next game on Monday when they face the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs are 38-21-3 this season and are coming off a 5-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights but will play the Colorado Avalanche before heading up to Salt Lake City. The last time these two teams met was in November, when Utah lost 3-2.
