WEST VALLEY CITY — The Utah Grizzlies had hoped to make some inroads on securing a playoff position during their season's longest homestand, a 10-gamer that ended with a slow start and big, but short, comeback on Monday afternoon in the E Center.
But Utah's 5-4 loss to the Idaho Steelheads left the Grizzlies 4-4-2 for the homestand. That's .500+ because the Grizz got a point for each of the two overtime losses, but it's not the kind of mark a team wants at home when it's trying to make progress.
"A win here could mean getting in the playoffs," said Grizzly center Danny Stewart, whose breakaway score following an Idaho turnover gave Utah the opportunity to tie over the last 3 1/2 minutes.
"These are important games," said coach Jason Christie. "It doesn't matter how hard you battle back. You've got to make sure you're starting the game like that."
Instead, Christie said, the Grizzlies opened up, "just kind of playing a little pond hockey. A lot of guys just kind of hanging in quiet zones."
The loss leaves the Grizzlies still at the bottom of the ECHL West, four points out of fourth place and a playoff position, and now they have to travel to Idaho for games Friday and Saturday before returning home Feb. 28 to start a six-game homestand. Idaho, now 28-18-4, is second in the West, 15 points behind the Alaska Aces but 10 ahead of third-place Phoenix.
"Once we got skating and forechecking, I thought the guys battled hard," Christie said, but, "A loss is a loss. We just fell so far behind at the start."
Utah scored the last three goals, but it needed four to match what Idaho had done.
The goals came quickly in the first, Idaho's Jeremy Yablonski breaking the ice seven minutes into the game with a shot from up the slot that tipped high off a Grizzly defender's stick, said Utah goalie Rob McVicar. "That started it all," he said.
Even though Utah scored just 42 seconds later, Stewart feeding Andy Sertich, "They jumped on that (first goal) and really took the momentum," McVicar said, adding that with momentum comes funny bounces.
Two J.B. Bittner power-play scores ended the first and opened the second and left Idaho up 5-1. "It just never seems to fail. Take a bad penalty, they score," Christie said.
Then the Grizzlies put on some heat. "The second period, Bill Kinkel is going to the net, battling. He's starting us off there," said Christie.
An Ed Campbell-Kyle Peto fight revved things up, and Kinkel gave Utah some hope with a rebound goal six seconds later, at 17:41 of the second. D.J. Jelitto and Stewart each scored breakaway goals after forcing turnovers in the third to leave Utah a shot from tying.
"It would have been nice to come all the way back," said Stewart, who has a seven-game, five-goal, six-assist scoring streak. He lost control of the puck as he was trying to make a move, but it slid under Idaho goalie Steve Silverthorn. "I'll take it. We scrambled at the end, and it could have very easily gone in (for a tying score), but it didn't."
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