The Florida Panthers defenseman Nate Schmidt (88) takes the puck against the Utah Hockey Club’s center Nick Bjugstad (17) at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Wed Jan 8, 2025 (AP News photo)

By Tom Walker

SALT LAKE CITY–Meet the new year, same as the old year. Utah’s home struggles continue in 2025 opener at Delta Center in a 4-1 loss to the Florida Panthers.

The Utah Hockey Club returned to Salt Lake City on Wednesday night to kick off a season-high 7-game homestand against the visiting Florida Panthers. Utah went 1-2-1 on their recent road trip and hoped their home rink would be friendlier in 2025 than it was in 2024 when they won just 5 of 16 in the first three months of their inaugural season at Delta Center.

The two teams’ defenses held the line in the opening frame, with Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky turning away all five shots he faced, and Utah’s Karel Vejmelka turning away all six from the Panthers.

Just sixteen seconds into the second period, Utah forward Barrett Hayton went to the penalty box for high-sticking against Niko Mikkola, and Florida center Sam Reinhart cashed it in on the power play with his 23rd goal of the season, assisted by Matthew Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov.

Less than two minutes into the third period, Jesper Boqvist put the Panthers up 2-0 with his 8th goal of the season, assisted by Carter Verhaeghe and Anton Lundell. At 12:56 of the third, Florida forward Sam Bennett went to the sin bin for slashing against Kevin Stenlund which opened the door for Logan Cooley to bring Utah back to within one on the power play with his 11th goal of the season, assisted by Clayton Keller and Mikhail Sergachev.

With Karel Vejmelka pulled from goal for an extra attacker in the waning minutes, the Panthers pounced twice with empty net strikes from Jesper Boqvist and Eetu Luostarinen to put the game away for good with a final score of 4-1.

After the game, Utah Hockey Club head coach André Tourigny weighed in with his assessment. “We can be better in certain areas offensively. But defensively, I think we were solid. (Florida is) a good team; Stanley Cup Champion. I think defensively, we did a lot of good things. I liked the effort of the guys, I liked the passion, all of it. Offensively, we need to be more connected…I feel that we were pretty good defensively. I think offensively, we did not have the same speed, the same rhythm, the same puck movement coming from our breakouts to the offensive zone. Give (Florida) credit; they check hard. They’re No. 1 in a lot of areas defensively and they didn’t give us time and space. That said…I like our team. Even if we didn’t have time and space, we went at the net, put pucks on the net, we got rebounds, we got chances. We created chances–not by pretty play all the time, but by playing the right way and grinding. When you play against those kinds of teams–Dallas and (Florida) and other teams–you need to generate those. Because if not, the pretty play never comes. I think we scored a good goal on the power play. But we had a lot of grind to lead to that. There’s a lot of positives, obviously one goal short.”

Next up for Utah are the Sharks at 7:00pm MST on Friday, followed by the Islanders, Canadiens, Rangers, Blues, and Jets over a 13-day stretch.