SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4 Sports) – The Utah Hockey Club has been in nearly every game the last couple weeks, but have not been able to close teams out.
Jordan Kyrou broke a tie in the third period to help the St. Louis Blues defeat the Utah Hockey Club 2-1 at Delta Center on Sunday, handing Utah its fifth straight loss.
In Utah’s last eight losses, dating back to January 11th, Utah has either had the lead or were tied in the third period, and lost all eight games.
“I thought we had a great game tonight,” said Kyrou. “All the way from the start, all the way to the end, we played hard. We played aggressive. We played fast. We played with the puck. We weren’t just throwing it away.”
Alexandre Texier scored for the Blues (24-25-4), who snapped a four-game losing streak. Jordan Binnington, who will represent Canada in the 4 Nations Face-Off from Feb. 12-20, made 24 saves.
“I just liked the way we started the game aggressively and we played all 60 minutes aggressively,” said Blues coach Jim Montgomery. “It was good to see us compete like that and play hard for each other and get rewarded.”
Michael Kesselring scored and Connor Ingram made 27 saves for Utah (21-22-9), who have now lost five games in a row.
“I didn’t like our energy and our urgency,” said Utah coach Andre Tourigny. “I think St. Louis, they played much better than the last two times we played them. They played way more stingy and it took way too long for us to accept that, go to work, put the puck behind and build speed, and do those kinds of things.”
Texier opened the scoring at 17:41 of the first period, beating Ingram above the shoulder on the blocker side to give the Blues a 1-0 lead.
“That’s a great two points,” said Texier. “We have three more games at home before the break… That’s a huge boost for us, and [we] just have to do one game at a time, and that was a good one tonight.”
Kesselring made it 1-1 at 3:27 of the third period, firing a slap shot from the point that beat Binnington through traffic off the far post and in.
“We’re a resilient bunch. I thought we battled hard today,” said Kesselring. “These are playoff games for us. We need to win. We need to push. I know we have some injuries, but there’s no excuses.”
Kyrou gave the Blues a 2-1 lead at 7:13 when he one-timed the puck through Ingram’s pads after Robert Thomas sent him a spinning pass from behind the net.
“I thought we stayed positive, and we stayed with it,” said Kyrou. “The guys went out there for the next shift. They had a great shift. And we just kept building on that and just kept going.”
“We had a streak where we weren’t playing well, so now we’ve got to build on this and get another game like this with the same kind of effort,” said Montgomery.
Utah will try to end its five-game losing skid Tuesday night at home against Philadelphia.
#Utah #loses #straight #close #game
Leave a Reply