Anaheim Ducks Troy Terry (19) shoots as defenseman Jackson LaCombe (2) assists while Utah’s goaltender Jaxson Stauber (33) defends with defenseman Ian Cole (28) and center Logan Cooley (92) at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Sun Dec 22, 2024 (AP News photo)
By Tom Walker
Utah starts fast but fails to hold on in 5-4 shoutout loss to the Anaheim Ducks.
SALT LAKE CITY–Utah Hockey Club returned home on Sunday for the first of three games at Delta Center, a welcome respite from the previous four consecutive one-game visits to home ice. The road has been good to Utah where they have won their last seven including Friday’s 2-1 victory in Minnesota in which Dylan Guenther scored his 15th and 16th goals of the season. On Sunday against the Anaheim Ducks, Utah hoped to build upon last week’s overtime win versus Vancouver which snapped a five-game home losing streak.
Captain Clayton Keller struck quickly for Utah just 86 seconds into the game with his 12th goal of the season, assisted by Juuso Välimäki and Barrett Hayton. Anaheim wasted no time evening things up a few minutes later as Robby Fabbri netted his third goal of the season for the Ducks, assisted by Mason McTavish. Late in the first, Utah center Barrett Hayton put his squad up 2-1 with his sixth goal of the season, assisted by Olli Määttä and Keller.
In the second period, Utah padded its lead early with a power play goal by Logan Cooley, his eighth of the season, assisted by Keller and Mikhail Sergachev, followed a few minutes later as Keller recorded his second goal and fourth point of the game, assisted by Sergachev and Nick Schmaltz, giving the home team a 4-1 lead.
Unfortunately for Utah, that’s where the wheels fell off and Anaheim began to mount its comeback. The Ducks were able to trim their deficit to 4-2 midway through the second period as center Isac Lundestrom found the back of the net for his 4th of the season, assisted by Olen Zellweger and Jansen Harkins.
With less than eight minutes remaining in the third period there was a scrum at the Utah net where Robby Fabbri somehow managed to knock a puck through the pads of netminder Jaxson Stauber which appeared to travel in super slow motion behind Stauber and trickle just across the line to draw Anaheim back to within one. Fabbri’s second goal of the game was assisted by Cutter Gauthier and Pavel Mintyukov.
At 13:31 of the third period, Utah forward Logan Cooley was sent to the penalty box for slashing against Mason McTavish. With just 16 seconds remaining in the penalty kill, Ducks winger Brett Leason completed Anaheim’s comeback with his 4th goal of the season, assisted by Gauthier and Zellweger, making it 4-4.
Following a scoreless overtime period, the two squads sent their champions to center ice for the shootout. Utah elected to go first, and Anaheim goalie Lukas Dostal turned away Nick Schmaltz, Clayton Keller, and Nick Bjugstad. Keller’s shot went off the crossbar and fans initially cheered as if it had crossed the goal line, but the official and video replay both indicated no-goal. For his part, Jaxson Stauber turned away Ducks penalty shot specialist Troy Terry and Brock McGinn, but ultimately could not stop Mason McTavish who won the game for Anaheim on a snap shot.
In Utah’s locker room forward Barrett Hayton, who scored the second goal of the night, commented, “Right now, it doesn’t feel like we walked away with a point with the way we handled that second half and obviously handled the lead. (That) can’t happen. It’s disappointing.” Addressing how things unraveled, he said, “I think it happened a little bit at the start of the game and then creeped back in. I think (we were) just getting too loose, giving up too much. You give a team that many power plays, it’s tough. I think there were a lot of things throughout the entire game. Obviously, fell apart in the third. It wasn’t good enough.”
Captain Clayton Keller weighed in, “It was kind of a back-and-forth game. We just weren’t good on our details. Just kind of played a little too loose. That’s what happens; they get some life, they get some bounces and we unfortunately lose the game. But the good thing about this is (that) we play tomorrow. We don’t have to think about it too much. We’ll address it and be better from it.” With regard to his four point game, Keller said, “Just playing simple, doing everything I can to help this team win. My linemates have done a great job as well. We’re on to tomorrow. … We’ll address it in the morning tomorrow, the things we need to do better. I still feel like we have a lot of confidence in this room. We still got a point tonight. We still have confidence and a quick reset (for) tomorrow.”
Utah Hockey Club head coach André Tourigny also talked about turning the page to tomorrow’s contest against the Dallas Stars. “We have to. Today is a good testimony of our maturity. That’s unfortunate. It is what it is. Anaheim is a tough team to play. They apply pressure, they have talent. You have to know that. And you need to show up with your ‘A’ game every night…Last week, I was here sitting in front of you and I was talking about urgency. That’s the most important thing. We need to have energy, yeah. But, urgency is a super important currency. If you have it, we can play against anybody and we can sustain success. If we don’t, you have your answer. That’s the problem tonight. The guys wanted to play well; they worked hard. I didn’t feel anyone was not working that hard. But I think we were not as urgent. We didn’t stop on pucks. We were not reloading with the same urgency. We didn’t take the simple decisions. We tried to make plays where there were no plays. That turnover goes on the other side. You take bad penalties. That kind of stuff. That’s just urgency. If you play for your life, you don’t do those things. It’s just what happened today. Those guys, they mean good. They want to do the right thing. They’re as mad as me right now. Nobody’s happy. They care; they care a ton. I have no doubt about it. We need to learn from it. That’s, unfortunately, the maturity part. Same thing when I was a young guy. You need to go through some adversity, some battle scars. So you learn from it and you get better…It’s frustrating, but it is what it is. I’m not mad at them. I’m mad at the situation. It’s (about) how we react to it. Adversity is what builds you. It shapes you. Either you become better or you become worse. If you become worse, that’s who you choose to be. That’s not what we will choose to be.”
The mood was much lighter in Anaheim’s locker room after the game which was filled with upbeat music including the resurgent Village People anthem “YMCA.” Ducks forward Robby Fabbri, who scored twice in the game, spoke about his team’s comeback. “I don’t think it was anything specific that we did. I think we just didn’t stray away from our team. When you’re down like that on the road, it’s easy just to pack it in. We don’t have that in our room here, and we showed that tonight.”
Anaheim’s head coach Greg Cronin addressed the media about keeping the faith when coming from behind. “I mean, it’s kind of a weird game, but there’s a lot of penalties. You know, they got up three to one, and I thought when it got four to one, there was that point in the game where we were trying to generate some energy internally to get the faith and the belief back. And then we got that second goal, which really changed the dynamic of the game. I didn’t attribute a lot to the physicality, I just thought we started skating more in the third period.” With regard to that third period, “Ironically, we had the five on three, and then we ended up making it a four on three. Then we ended up, you know, killing a penalty for 30 seconds… but I thought after that was over, we had that goal at the goal mouth [the third goal], when we made it four to three, that goal changed it. We could just tell there was more belief in our play, and then I think there was a little bit more confidence that if we got pucks down deep, we got them back, and would get an opportunity to get some scoring chances off of direct shots or rebounds.”
Cronin talked about the extra incentive to get a win for the dads who are tagging along on this road trip. “I don’t know what they were thinking about. I know after the second period, I had told them that the dads are here, and they have come a long way to watch you guys play. Let’s finish this off and get a win. Killorn’s dad, Matt, read the pregame lineup… he did a great job, so I’m gonna carry him with us on all the trips.”
Utah will immediately lace up their skates on Monday at 7:00pm MST for their final game before Christmas against the Dallas Stars. Dallas won their previous matchup 2-1 at Delta Center three weeks ago. The two teams are tied for points in the Central Division with 38 each, but Dallas has a game in hand.
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