Utah Hockey Club suffers narrow loss in front of Post Malone

As fun as it is to see a close game between two divisional rivals, the crowd at the Delta Center that was there Monday night for Utah Hockey Club’s contest against the Dallas Stars was most excited when Post Malone popped up on the jumbotron.

Post Malone was there with team owner Ryan Smith to witness Utah HC’s 2-1 loss to the Stars — a game that could have gone either way and came down to puck luck.

“The opportunities are there, I just haven’t been knocking them down,” said Utah HC forward Michael Carcone after the game. “It could be 2-2, it could be 3-2 if I put one of those away.”

Carcone took a disproportionate amount of responsibility for a team loss, but his statement rings true: The chances were there, but the bounces didn’t go his team’s way.

Here’s the full story.

Utah Hockey for dummies

Nick Schmaltz, who didn’t score in his first 23 games, now has three goals after game No. 25. He scored twice on Saturday in Utah HC’s 6-0 win over the Vegas Golden Knights and potted another on Monday.

Schmaltz also chalked it up to luck.

“I feel like I’m getting, kind of, the same looks that I was getting prior, but sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t,” he said.

Even without scoring goals, though, Utah’s second-highest-paid forward has contributed at a level that makes him valuable to the team, as he has the 29th-most assists in the league so far this season.

Utah Hockey for casual fans

Head coach André Tourigny is not a big fan of numbering his lines in order of skill because any line can be the best on any given night.

Monday was one of those nights.

The “fourth” line, which consisted of Carcone, Kevin Stenlund and Alex Kerfoot, will appear in Stars goalie Casey DeSmith’s nightmares. All night long, that trio was finding lanes to the net and creating surefire scoring chances.

They didn’t score a goal, but they dragged a fatigued Utah HC team into the fight against a heavily favored Stars team.

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“They generated good offense, they were good on the track, they were responsible,” Tourigny said of that group. “I think they played well.”

Tourigny also spoke of how much he likes Carcone specifically.

“I think he brings a special element of speed to our team,” he said. “There’s not one game where I don’t see Carcs pushing their (defense) back, going around their D, bringing the puck deep in their zone and doing those kinds of things which, even if the opponent has one or two players like that, they put you on your heels.

“He brings a lot of fear in our opponents.”

Utah Hockey for nerds

The Stars’ first goal, which came from Evgenii Dadonov on the power play, was a topic of debate on press row at the Delta Center.

As Dadonov was letting his shot fly, Mason Marchment swatted at the puck with his stick. But rather than making contact with the puck, he knocked Karel Vejmelka’s glove to the other side of his body.

Goaltender interference has been hard to define the last few seasons, so there’s no guarantee that a coach’s challenge would have overturned the goal — but some think it would have been worth a shot.

Tourigny said in his postgame scrum that he didn’t personally take a look at it for the purpose of challenging the goal, but he trusts his video staff.

All things being equal, a successful challenge would have resulted in the game going to overtime. That’s a tough pill to swallow for Utah HC fans, especially against another Central Division team.

Tourigny also stuck with the theme of luck to explain that goal.

“It’s a bad-angle shot,” he said. “That will go in once every hundred (times). It is what it is. We had our fair share of those shots as well. That’s a hockey game. It didn’t go in for us.”

What’s next?

Utah HC gets a four-day break between games. They resume play on Saturday with a trip to Buffalo, where they’ll take on the Sabres.

The Sabres are in a similar boat to Utah HC: A lot of people projected them to make a jump in the standings this year, but they’re currently a few points out of a wild card spot. The two teams aren’t in the same conference, but the points are just as crucial.

Tourigny said he’ll use the break strategically, so as to not overwork the guys — especially since they play five games in the following eight days.

It’s an afternoon game on the East Coast, which means it’s a morning game in Utah. It starts at 11 a.m. MDT and will be shown on Utah 16 but not Utah HC+.