WEST VALLEY CITY -- Hollywood couldn't have done it any better.
A big game; a huge finish. Another lead lost; another tie game going down to the wire. Then with three seconds remaining, a goal wins it for one of the teams.Several times in the last month that team has been whoever is playing Utah. Tuesday night, the miracle finish belonged to the Grizzlies.
Utah led nearly all the way, but third-place Long Beach scored a power play goal 4:19 into the third period and momentum seemed to shift. The Ice Dogs scored again six minutes later. A tie game against the team just three points behind them in the standings. If Utah wins, the Grizzlies secure a first-round bye.
While Utah and Long Beach battle it out, fourth place Houston wins handily at home adding more pressure to the situation.
As the clock sped toward zero, both teams aggressively fought to keep it away from their respective goals. With the clock nearing 10 seconds left, Utah's Zarley Zalapski wrestled the puck out of Utah's zone. He passed to Jarrod Skalde.
Skalde sped with the puck into Long Beach's territory, then he passed to Brad Lauer, who immediately shot up and over the waiting goalie. Score. Utah wins 3-2. Three seconds left.
What went through the mind of Lauer as he crossed in front of Skalde and stared down an NHL all-star goalie with his team's future on the line?
"I'm not (thinking)," he answered with a smile. He held his left hand wrapped in ice after the game. "I just want to get the shot in the net. I had no idea (the shot was good). I just didn't want to get the shot blocked."
Lauer said in those final seconds, he and his teammates did what they always do. They fought to score and tried not to make fatal mistakes.
"We learned a lot last month," he said of their losses in the final minutes or shootouts. "We grew through it as a team. It made us better as a team. There was no panic like there used to be."
After one of those heartbreaking losses, one Utah Grizzly told his coach and team that everything happens for a reason. Maybe this is the reason.
Maybe their clear-headedness came from seeing what happens in a game's final seconds and that even a minute can be an eternity for the right shot after some hard work.
"It was awesome," said coach Bob Bourne, who's watched his team play great hockey and then the opponent wins. "When you go through a tough time like we have, you start to question yourselves. The last few weeks, we proved we're a good hockey team."
And does it feel better, taste sweeter to win like this after losing this way so recently?
"It's an incredible feeling," said John Purves, who scored Utah's first two goals. "It would still feel incredible (if they hadn't lost), but that's hockey. It's drama."
Utah took an early lead against a goalie who has almost single-handedly pushed Long Beach into the Western Conference's top three spots. An NHL holdout, Nikolai Khabibulin arrived in Long Beach to join the team with the worst winning percentage in the West (.522). Now they're fighting for second or third place in the standings and have clinched a playoff spot.
Purves' first goal came just 22 seconds into the game. Then at 1:08 in the second period, he scored again, unassisted. He's now scored 36 goals, the third highest number scored in a season by one player.
Goalie Corey Hirsch held Long Beach scoreless for two periods, stretching his shutout minutes to 164 in a row. He was named the IHL Goaltender of the Week after he posted shutouts in both games he played. Tuesday night he had 42 saves on 44 shots.
Ice Dog Khabibulin, on the other hand, had 21 saves on 24 shots.
The team celebrated by getting up at 6 a.m. and flying to Manitoba for a game Wednesday night. And just because they've clinched a playoff berth and a first-round bye, don't look for Utah to rest on its laurels.
"In the minds of everybody, we want to feel good about our system, our play," Purves said.