On the 107th anniversary of the inception of the NHL, the league’s newest team faced off against its oldest team. Barney Stinson always says, “new is always better” — and that held true on Tuesday.
The Utah Hockey Club pulled off the 3-2 overtime win over the Montreal Canadiens, sending them home with a record of 2-2-0 on their week-long road trip.
As the Deseret News previously reported, teams that are more than four points out of a playoff spot by American Thanksgiving rarely end up making the playoffs. Utah HC players and fans can enjoy their turkey dinners with the peace of mind, knowing that they’re three points shy of the playoffs.
“We’re heading in the right direction,” said head coach André Tourigny after the game.
Mikhail Sergachev scored the overtime winner to silence the Bell Centre — typically one of the loudest arenas in the league. Dylan Guenther and Jack McBain also scored for Utah.
“Its big,” Sergachev said. “Both teams are fighting for a playoff spot and fighting for wins. So it means a lot for both teams, but we come out on top.”
Utah Hockey for dummies
It was a special game for two players in particular: Guenther and Maveric Lamoureux.
Guenther played the 100th game of his NHL career and he happened to score Utah HC’s first goal: a one-timed shot on a perfect pass from Clayton Keller. With that goal as well as an assist, he extends his point streak to three games.
As for Lamoureux, it was his first NHL game in his hometown of Montreal, Quebec. He told media before the game that he’s been attending games at the Bell Centre since he was 5 or 6 years old, so it was a dream come true to play on that ice.
Per Utah HC play-by-play broadcaster Matt McConnell, Lamoureux had 125 friends and family members in attendance.
“It feels pretty good, that’s for sure — especially having a win,” Lamoureux said after the game. “We needed a win to finish the trip, but winning always feels good.”
Utah Hockey for casual fans
Minor penalties were a major issue for Utah in the previous few games, but they seemed to have it under control on Tuesday.
Now, you might take a look at the stats and see that they took five penalties, leading you to think I’m crazy. I’m not denying that I’m crazy, but hear me out, because it’s not how you think it is.
One of the five penalties was a coincidental minor, meaning the other team took a minor penalty at the same time, so neither team gets the advantage.
The other four penalties prevented goals, and those are penalties players should take. For example, Lamoureux — who, admittedly, has taken some bad penalties in recent memory — spent two minutes for holding Kirby Dach on a partial breakaway halfway through the third period. Had he not done that, Dach would have had a better chance at scoring, and then maybe I’d be writing about what went wrong in Utah’s loss, rather than what went right in their win.
The other key thing is that the Canadiens did not score a power-play goal. That’s a big win for Utah’s penalty kill group, which has allowed far too many goals in the last handful of games.
All that being said, it did seem like Utah was in for a long night when Nick Bjugstad went to the box 42 seconds into the game.
Utah Hockey for nerds
Sergachev was the best player on the ice on Tuesday, and it wasn’t particularly close.
Per the Utah HC broadcast team, he skated more than four miles. He played almost 31 minutes. He scored the game-winning goal. Tourigny would probably have played him the whole game if he could have.
Sergachev doesn’t mind the weight on his shoulders.
“A lot of emotion goes into that game, so it felt good,” he said.
That was the first overtime goal of Sergachev’s career, and it came against the team that drafted him. He played four games for the Canadiens in the 2016-17 season before being traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Jonathan Drouin.
Although he played his first NHL game and scored his first overtime goal in that building, Sergachev’s fondest memory of Montreal undoubtedly revolves around the 2021 Stanley Cup Final, where he and the Lightning beat the Habs in five games.
Sergachev may find himself playing big minutes yet again in the next few games, as Robert Bortuzzo left the game with an injury and did not return.
It came on a center-ice collision with Joshua Roy in the neutral zone. Bortuzzo received a kneeing penalty on the play.
Utah’s defense corps is already ridden with injuries to the right side. Although Bortuzzo doesn’t play every game, he’s a sturdy member of the group and the team is better when he’s in the lineup.
The team has not announced his injury status.
What’s next?
Utah HC gets two full days off before getting back to action against the Edmonton Oilers in Salt Lake City on Friday.
New hockey fans might recognize the Oilers’ jerseys from pretty much every highlight reel in the last decade. Between superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, they score a lot of goals — and a lot of nice ones, at that.
The Oilers usually have one of the best power play records in the NHL, but they have struggled in that area this year. Their 15.8% is the seventh-worst in the league. That’s good news for Utah, who has taken the second-most penalties in the league.
Goaltending is also an issue for the Oilers this year, as it has been for some time now.
The game starts at 7 p.m. MDT and will be broadcast on Utah 16 and Utah HC+. Tickets to the game are also available, starting at $61 on Ticketmaster at the time of writing.