Utah Grizzlies: Yau-za

With three weeks of road hockey on the horizon, the Grizzlies rolled into Saturday night with a 6-2-1-1 record, hoping to have another good game against the Allen Americans. Garrett Klotz drew in for Dalton Mills, and Mason McDonald once again got the start.

There was absolutely nothing slow about the start from either team, Utah picking up the first four shots, but Allen skating just as hard.

Utah’s jump paid off first, and Connor Yau scored his first pro goal off the post and in at 5:35 from Travis Barron and Ty Lewis.

Meanwhile, though he only saw one official shot through the first seven minutes or so, McDonald proved that he was just as awake as his teammates.

Utah iced the puck a couple of times around the 7:30-8:00 mark, but McDonald made short work of the Americans’ zone starts.

Klotz and Sasha Larocque broke in on and odd-man rush, and Utah got the first power play at 8:46 after Klotz was tripped up. The Grizzlies had a number of really great ideas on the advantage, but were unable to double their lead.

A couple of minutes later, Yuri Terao went off for hooking but though they did a great job for the most part, with just a couple of seconds left, a brief moment of clumsiness from the Utah defensemen gave Allen all they needed to tie it up.

J.C. Brassard drew a holding call with about 1:30 to go, but the power play was immediately negated, as Lewis got called for holding just moments later.

The Grizzlies played some really beautiful four-on-four hockey, and with two seconds left, tempers began to flair. Josh Dickinson tripped up an Allen player, and a crowd gathered.

Thirty seconds into the second with only Dickinson still in the box, the Americans made it 2-1.

However, Lewis drew a power play at 4:25, and Dickinson wired one past Dereck Baribeau ten seconds into the advantage to tie the game.

At 6:04 things got a little out of hand, as Josh Britain and Garrett Klotz began a scuffle. Both got roughing calls, but Klotz was also given a game misconduct for continuing the altercation, apparently.

The Americans scored on the ensuing four-on-four. No sooner had the teams returned to full strength, however, than they both went back to the box Terao for slashing, and Jared VanWormer for unsportsmanlike conduct. With one second left in the four-on-four, Jack Jenkins took a hooking call, but Utah killed that one off.

Lewis had two chances to tie the game up on the same shift, but missed wide both times. Molino got leveled with under six to go, and as one thing led to another, Maxwell dropped the gloves with Doetzel. Both got five for fighting.

Things continued to devolve from there, and with under two to go, Barron was cross-checked. He resented this, and tangled with Brett Pollock. Both got two for roughing, while Pollock got an extra two for cross-checking. Utah went to the power play, but more concerning, Barron went to the room.

At the end of 40, shots were 18-17 for Allen, who also led 3-2 in what had become an official-heavy game.

Barron was not back to start the third, and the Americans returned to full strength.

Unfortunately for the Grizzlies, Allen made it 4-2 with almost exactly four gone.

However, Terao drew a penalty shortly thereafter. Just nine seconds in, Jack Jenkins wired the puck past Paterson for his fourth of the year from Terao and Dickinson.

Brassard and Tischke especially had really strong shifts as the game headed towards the final ten minutes, but Baribeau stood on his head. Even more impressively, the Grizzlies did NOT look like a team playing down two forwards, even as the Americans pressured.

Utah returned the favor, Maxwell was robbed, Jenkins rang iron, and the Grizzlies drew a power play with 6:09 to go.

With 2:12 to go, following and Allen icing, the Grizzlies pulled McDonald for an extra attacker. Allen then iced the puck again.

In the end, the Americans scored twice into the empty net with less than a minute to go.

Obviously, a 6-3 score doesn’t look great on paper, but without the empty netters, it was a very close –if oddly officiated– game.

“I thought our guys played really well.” Coach Branham said after the game, “Not sure why Klotz was kicked out of the game. No clue. I watched it on video and I still don’t know why but you know it is what it is. I thought our boys played really well. The first two periods, like you’re talking about, it was really choppy, like penalty here penalty there, we couldn’t get into flow. And then you see in the third period where you can finally get some five on five shifts and you know, we’re able to take it to them. I’m actually probably the way the boys played with Klotz kicked out. Then we had another injury. We played short handed, and I thought they battled really hard to be honest.

Once again, Brassard, Tischke especially, but also Yau with his first goal, stepped up and continued to improve. “Yeah, I think those three are playing really well,” said Branham, “Tischke’s really stepping up playing big minutes playing important minutes, Yau, same thing. I thought Brass was really good. You’re exactly right, those guys played really well. Our players played really, really well. To be honest. Once again, we gave up 24 shots, they had those two empty netters for 26, but that we gave up 24 shots and our players played really well. They played hard. It was a choppy game back and forth. I thought we had a lot of grade A scoring chances where we tried to get a little fancy, we could have just shut the puck, but you know, is what it is. We’ll regroup here, go on a road trip and get some wins.”

For Yau, obviously he would have preferred his first pro goal come with a win, but it’s still a nice milestone to get out of the way.

“Yeah, it’s nice to get the first one but obviously would like a better outcome. We know they’re good team. Essentially a playoff game right there. High pace, we had some forwards go down. So we needed some of our D-men, to you know, fill that void up front. So it was nice to have guys like Brasser and Tisch, really good skaters to kind of fill in for those close holes we had.”

Despite losing two forwards in the second, the Grizzlies didn’t look like a team playing with a severely shortened bench, and that’s down to their conditioning — something that will become more and more valuable as this very busy stretch continues.

When asked about the team’s ability to turn it on in the third period, even down two guys, Yau said, “We work hard every day in practice. We work out, we condition, we skate to be as prepared as we can be for these third period efforts and that’s why I think it shows. Sometimes we have those sluggish first periods. We know in the second and third, we can rely on our conditioning to propel us through the game.”

Obviously, you don’t ever want to lose 6-3, empty-netters or no, but the Grizzlies played well, and isn’t overly concerned going forward.

“This is just a minor set back” Yau added. “We know it’s one game, we knew we weren’t gonna win every game this season. They’re a good team, we’re a good team, we just know we’ve got to learn from it, we know we can be better, and we can apply those types of principles going forward, especially on this big road trip when we’ll need to rely on those types of things.”

The Grizzlies head out for a three week road trip, where they’ll take on Atlanta, Greenville, Wichita, Idaho, Tulsa, and Kansas City.

Goals

First Period: Yau (Barron, Lewis)
Second Period: Dickinson (Williams, Brassard)
Third Period: Jenkins (Dickinson, Terao)

Photo courtesy of Mauree North

Utah Grizzlies: Sweet Revenge

Fresh off a spectacular road trip, and a quick holiday season, the Grizzlies returned home to host the Tulsa Oilers. With Patrick McGrath called up to Iowa, only J.C. Brassard, Garrett Klotz, and the goalies Brad Barone and Jeff Smith were not in the lineup.

Having suffered only one loss, 3-1 to this same Tulsa team on the road, Utah hoped to erase it from memory with a good performance, and bring their winning ways back home.

After a very short stint in their own zone, the Grizzlies got hustling, picking up the first five shots of the night. Their shooting and puck management led to Ty Lewis’ tenth of the season, which he made look absolutely effortless against Devin Williams at 3:34. The usual suspects in Tim McGauley and Griffen Molino picked up the assists.

There were a couple of close calls about twelve minutes in, but Martin Ouellette turned aside a wrap-around attempt, and then calmly shut the door after a turnover led to a bit of a scramble.

The Lewis-McGauley-Molino line continued to impress with their puck handling and rebound creation as shots hit 7-4 for the Grizzlies, and the period hit the half-way mark.

With so few stoppages in play, the flow of the game was allowed to continue unimpeded, and certainly showed off the Grizzlies’ speed and skill.

Yao had an especially memorable shift as he first flew in from the bench to cut off what was otherwise a one-on-none, and then later on the same shift swiped a puck away from an open net after Ouellette made the initial save, and then lost the puck in a sea of bodies.

Ouellette also continued to impress throughout, and the Travis Barron, Brandon Saigeon, Mitch Maxwell line closed the period out with a multi-shot shift.

After 20, Utah led 1-0, out-shooting Tulsa 12-8.

The Grizzlies drew the game’s first power play at 1;25, following a bit of nice puck-handling from Saigeon. They only picked up one shot, but it didn’t matter, for scarcely had the man advantage ended than Lewis once again made scoring look easy on a play from McGauley.

Shortly thereafter, Yau made a blue-line play from his knees to get the puck up to Lewis. After that, it surprised no one when Lewis passed the puck to McGauley, who hten passed it off to Molino. Williams made the initial save, but Molino backhanded the puck right over the Tulsa goalie to make it 3-0.

Unfortunately, a turnover from Richart eventually led to the Oilers’ first, and only, goal of the game almost immediately afterwards.

Travis Barron and Danny Moynihan got into a scrap at 7:58, Barron getting the better of the exchange, which never quite developed into a full-fledged fight, and Utah killed off the extra two Barron got for slashing.

Williams got a pair of chances just past the 14 minute mark, the first which squeaked just wide of the net, and the second which landed square on the stick of Joe Wegwerth and into the net.

Ouellette made a couple of big saves in the later stages of the period, and Utah drew another power play with under four to go. Although the Grizzlies didn’t actually capitalize on the advantage, it was hard to see their puck movement and think that it looked a little like they were toying with Tulsa.

Barron continued to get opportunities, but not goals, and at the buzzer, Mike McKee turnstiled McGauley, which led to a scuffle with Sasha Larocque and McKee in the thick of it. McKee was assessed a penalty for roughing. As a result, Utah headed into the third up 4-1, out-shooting Tulsa 21-13, and headed to the man-advantage.

The ensuing special teams were underwhelming on both sides, and included the least threatening start to a one-on-none short-handed breakaway ever.

The lacklustre power play was forgotten, however, when just about a minute later, Yao released a big shot on net, and Wegwerth once again tipped the puck home perfectly to put Utah up 5-1.

The game got a little out of hand after that, Wegwerth getting put into the boards, leading to three separate fights. That was more or less when the refs lost control of the game. The fights were all considered rouging calls, and the initial boarding that started it was never called.

On the next shift or so, Zahn dropped the gloves. Zahn got two for slashing, as well as the four and ten both received. The upshot, however was that Utah had nearly a minute of four-on-three to kill.

On the shift after THAT Cam Knight and Mitch Maxwell dropped the gloves, and Maxwell won decisively in a furious bout that was the only one of the game to actually be called a fight. Both got five and a game, and Utah killed off the rest of their penalties.

Both teams got back to the business of playing hockey after that, though the Oilers did take a delay-of-game penalty at 13:57.

Joe Wegwerth completed the natural hat trick with just under three to go, and the Grizzlies avenged their only road loss in decisive fashion. The hat trick earned Wegwerth first star honors, while Lewis’ two goals, and McGauley’s three assists gave them second and third stars respectively. Flying much further under the radar though, were Yao’s two assists, and overall strong play.

Needless to say, Tim Branham was pleased with his team’s effort.

“We came out, we had something to prove. Last game we played against these guys, it was the one game we took off in the last 20. We had a statement to make. We played a good game, I thought Marty still made some big saves back there. That one goal, Pleskach can score. That’s a tough play to even defend. Really proud of how the boys stuck up for each other, policed the game when it wasn’t being policed. Overall, it was a really good effort.”

When asked about his white hot first line, he said, “It’s fun to watch those guys, every shift they’re pretty creative, pretty fast, stuff like that. And they play such a big part of the game, not only power play, they penalty kill, they give the other team fits. They’re playing with a lot of confidence right now. They play a fast game, and it’s good. It’s what they need to do, what we need them to do, and it’s fun to watch, that’s for sure.”

Yao’s performance also came in for a share of praise. “Very, very good game. Played defense, played forward. He gives you that effort though, he gives you that effort every night. He skates so well, he’s so smart out there. It’s tough. We’ve got a lot of contracted d-men, we’ve got a lot of good defensemen back there, and sometimes rookies gotta bide their time, give you that effort when it’s needed, and he’s done exactly that. He’s been there when we’ve needed that, and he’s a great teammate.”

However, Branham saved most of of his praise for Wegwerth. “He’s doing great.” He said, “We’ve got to understand where he’s coming from. His senior year, last year, his senior year at Notre Dame, I think it was November, December, he broke his leg, and he hasn’t played since then. He comes back out, and breaks his hand when he gets here, then he takes a puck to the mouth, loses teeth six weeks later, and for him to battle the way he has and develop, he’s got a bright future ahead of him, that’s for sure. He’s a big body, he’s tough to handle, he’s tough, he’s got great hand-eye coordination in front of the net, which we saw tonight, and a great human being, so definitely it’s a lot of fun coaching him as well because he’s a sponge out there. He comes from a good program, Jeff Jackson does a good job there at Notre Dame, and Joe’s a byproduct of that.”

The Grizzlies’ offensive game has obviously expanded exponentially recently, but it’s not the only area in which they have improved in the past month or so, something Lewis was quick to point out. “I think our defensive game has come a long way, I feel like we’ve really taken a next step in our d-zone, and our responsibility defensively in the past couple of weeks. Our d-core is really strong, probably one of the most solid d-cores in the league in my opinion, so hopefully we just keep that going.”

“I think everyone is feeling good in the room right now,” he added, when asked about the team’s overall mood, and success. “It’s nice when things go well, and guys are getting the bounces. We’re just trying to take advantage of what we’ve got going here, good mentality in the room, everyone’s prepared to do their job, and things are just working well.”

Wegwerth’s thoughts were similar. “I think it’s a ton of fun. Every night it’s a different guy, it seems like. Everyone is stepping up and doing the little things. It’s not about one person in the room right now, it’s about all of us, and that’s what’s special about it.”

After such a hotly contested game, Saturday’s rematch is certainly going to be one to watch.

Photo courtesy of Tim Broussard.