In an up-and-down season, the Utah Hockey Club has managed to keep itself in the mix for a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
After enduring its latest down, a 7-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday, Utah will be looking to get back on track when it hosts the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday.
Utah (30-27-11, 71 points) enters the contest four points behind the Vancouver Canucks for the second wild card from the Western Conference.
On Tuesday, Utah was down 3-0 after the first period and trailed 5-0 midway through the second. The six-goal differential in the final result was the team’s largest deficit this season.
“Obviously that’s not us, that’s not who we are,” defenseman Sean Durzi said. “Not the performance we wanted. We’re upset. This time of year you can’t have that. We’ll have to regroup; we’ll have to find that mentality of moving on and putting this one in the past.”
Back on Feb. 2, Utah was eight points out of the final spot. But the team has managed to narrow the gap thanks to a 9-5-2 run that began Feb. 4. Seven of those victories came during a 7-3-0 stretch from Feb. 4 to March 6. Utah is 2-2-2 over the past six games, scoring 15 total goals — six of which came over two games.
“It’s everybody — the fight, the pushback, what we’re known for, the resilience and being engaged and to be connected. There was none of that,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said after the loss to the Oilers. “It’s everybody, and it starts with the coach. It’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The Sabres, meanwhile, head into Thursday’s matchup looking to keep building off their current 3-1-0 stretch. Each of those wins has been by one goal, and Buffalo (27-33-6, 60 points) has rallied from a deficit to earn the victories in each of their past two games — a 4-3 shootout win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday and a 3-2 overtime triumph against the Boston Bruins on Monday.
The Sabres have delivered strong defensive efforts in each of their past three wins and notably in the past two, holding the Golden Knights and Bruins to 20 or fewer shots on goal in each game.
“Just sticking to our system,” center Peyton Krebs said. “I think throughout the year, we’ve had the lead and given it up at times, and we don’t want that in our identity and our game. We’re just trying to make sure we continue to develop that for the rest of the season.”
After turning things around on home ice (17-14-3), Buffalo is trying to do the same as the visitor (10-19-3). The win against Boston on Monday snapped an eight-game road skid (0-7-1), the Sabres’ first victory on opposing ice since Jan. 21 at Vancouver.
While all but mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, the Sabres know they need to be better away from home if they want to be in contention next season.
“I think we can clean up our road play and that’ll give us a good shot to make the playoffs,” Krebs said. “Teams that have the best road record seem to make the playoffs, so got to continue to build off this, play the right way and good things will happen.”
–Field Level Media
