Columbus 'found a way to win' Friday, and the Utah Hockey Club found a way to lose


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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Hockey Club André Tourigny struggled to find the words.

He looked at the quality chances, the shots on goal, the possession — all showed heavy Utah advantages. All, except for that pesky scoreboard.

Utah coughed up a two-goal lead in the third period and fell 3-2 in overtime Friday to the Columbus Blue Jackets at the Delta Center.

If that sounds familiar, well, that's because it was a pretty similar script to Wednesday's game.

"They were really opportunistic in the third period. Out of three scoring chances, they scored twice," Tourigny said. "It's the second time in two games, a little bit of the same story. We played much better in the third, and we had seven scoring chances against three in the third; that's tough to swallow."

Tourigny is feeling like his team is a bit snake-bitten right now.

"To say the least," the coach said. "If I had more of a good vocabulary, I will find something even worse than that."

In the first minute of the third period, when Alexander Kerfoot rebounded a Nick Schmaltz blast to give Utah a 2-0 lead, that's when Utah's luck turned — and quickly.

Columbus cut Utah's lead in half when Kirill Marchenko squeezed his stick between two Utah defenders and got the puck up and over Karel Vejmelka's pad. It was a great effort, but benefited from a couple of bounces that kept the puck in front of the net.

That wasn't the end of the opportune bounces for Columbus.

On the game-tying goal, Kent Johnson fired a poorly-angled shot at Karel Vejmelka that fell to the ice right in the path of Utah defenseman Nick DeSimone's skate. That same skate pushed the puck into the goal.

"We really weren't making any plays tonight," Columbus Blue Jackets Defenseman Zach Werenski said. "Marchy (Kirill Marchenko) chips one in, and then KJ just fires from a bad angle and got a lucky bounce. Sometimes you need those bounces. Tonight we got them."

He then added: "We found a way to win."

At this point, that's a foreign feeling for the Hockey Club.

It's become a tradition for raucous celebrations to be heard from the visitor's locker room at the Delta Center after what has felt like stolen victories.

Forget about finding a way to win, Utah has mostly found ways to lose.

In overtime, Barrett Hayton, who scored Utah's opening goal, gave away the puck, which led to a two-man rush by Columbus. Werenski and Cole Sillinger were so far ahead of Utah's three overtime players they passed the puck between themselves four times before Werenski's game-winner.

Vejmelka never stood a chance.

It was Utah's 16th giveaway of the night. And if you're looking for a culprit for the loss other than the oft-used puck luck, there it is.

Still, Tourigny is right: A lot went Utah's way on Friday. The Club controlled the pace of play for much of the night and generated quality chance after quality chance. Even the third period wasn't as bad as earlier this season.

But the results tell a different story.

"What were the scoring chances? What were the shots on net? What was the zone time?" Kerfoot said.

Sure, but what was the final score?

Utah didn't speak of moral victories after the game, but it danced around them.

"You're not going to win every game," Kerfoot continued. "We've got to fight through. We've got to find ways. We're doing some good things; it's not going our way. Obviously, losing both games in overtime hurts; it stings."

Enough to find the antidote to the late-game struggles? Time will tell.

"We've had the right mindset," captain Clayton Keller said. "(We've) just got to keep going, learn from it, having the confidence, believing you can make the play in the third. So I think that's the next step."

And Keller thinks there is still time to right the ship. Even with the loss, Utah still picked up a point in the standings and are in shouting distance of the final wildcard spot.

"There's a lot of games left in the season," Keller said. "We've gotten hot this year before; and it takes a game or two, and your confidence is at an all-time high, and you keep rolling it over and you squeeze out some wins that maybe you shouldn't. So we've just got to stay confident and keep going."

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