The Utah Hockey Club drops divisional play at home

Barrett Hayton didn’t have a concrete answer for the Utah Hockey Club’s lackluster second half.

“I don’t know. We have to sit down and talk about it. I think we have to find out what’s causing it,” said the striker. “We have to find out the mentality.”

It was Hayton’s third-period goal that pulled Utah within one point after the Dallas Stars had taken a 3-1 lead at midfield. However, the comeback attempt was too late and the Stars picked up the two oh-so-valuable division points with a 3-2 win at the Delta Center on Monday evening.

“We’re neck and neck (in the standings) with these guys. This is a game we really needed and wanted,” said Nick Bjugstad. “I tried to fight back in the third half, but they are a good team. I can’t give myself a break. That’s what we did in the second.”

The Stars took a 1-0 lead midway through the first period on a goal from Colin Blackwell. After Utah lost the ball in the neutral zone, the Dallas forward broke out of the rush and shot past Karel Vejmelka from the right side.

Kevin Stenlund tied Utah at 1-1 just over a minute later with his fifth goal of the month and sixth of the season. The experienced striker gained a good position at the net and slotted Ian Cole’s shot from the point into the goal at 12:41.

The back-to-back fatigue became apparent for Utah in the second period. The team looked disjointed and slow, and that came at a cost.

“On the other hand, it is an experienced team that weathered the storm in the first third,” said head coach André Tourigny. “Then they put us where they wanted us to be and we didn’t play very well.”

Dallas took advantage of its freshness by often creating strange situations simply by allowing Utah to get the puck.

This is how Roope Hintz’s goal went. He and Mavrik Bourque passed Stenlund and Michael Kesselring on Utah’s defensive blueline before Hintz was open up front in a Hintz sequence. He made it 2-1 at 12:39.

Jamie Benn’s tally at 17:50 closely resembled the same play. Wyatt Johnston ran the puck behind the net before hitting the wide-open Benn, who fired a one-timer to make it 3-1 in the third period.

“I think the second hour is obviously the learning hour. We knew going into this game that it was going to be a four-point game, a divisional game. These encounters are huge,” Hayton said. “We’re all angry about it and disappointed and frustrated with ourselves. This is a big game and it’s a shame that it’s going this way.”

Utah’s power play – which was on a seven-game conversion streak – could barely string passes together and failed to create a cycle on the two chances it was given in 40 minutes. However, the third line of Bjugstad, Lawson Crouse and Matias Maccelli saw a noticeable jump early in the evening as they tried to get their production going.

“When you’re not scoring as a line, you’re trying to figure out what to do. But for us it’s just a simplification,” Bjugstad said. “I just have to find a way to score. That’s pretty much all I have on that front.”

Hayton’s goal came at 11:39 of the final stanza, giving his team just under nine minutes to wait for the equalizer, which they ultimately failed to achieve. After Utah won a faceoff in the offensive zone, Hayton got between the markers and deflected Nick Schmaltz’s shot from the left side for the final score of 3-2 and his second goal in two games.

Clayton Keller picked up his second assist of the game, extending his point streak to five games – he had 10 points in that span.

“Proud of the boys’ performance,” said Tourigny. “Proud of the setback we had. We all talk about the second half, which is completely right and fair, but we had a huge setback in the third half and the boys never gave up.”

Utah now has three NHL-mandated days off over the holidays before returning to the Delta Center on Friday to host the Colorado Avalanche – another Central Division opponent.

Despite Utah’s two-game losing streak, the team remains confident about its overall performance in December and its position heading into the new year.

“It’s up to us. “They put pressure on us, but we have to understand that it’s game management,” Bjugstad said. “We have to learn, we have to move on. I think this team has a lot of potential, so we want to take advantage of that.”