A bad eight minutes results in a stunning defeat for the Utah Hockey Club

SALT LAKE CITY – It was a bad eight minutes.

Ottawa scored four goals in 8:09 of the first period en route to a 4-0 victory over the Utah Hockey Club on Tuesday at the Delta Center. It was Utah's first home loss of the season.

As for the rest of the game… well, it was largely controlled by the home team.

Utah had 10 more shots on goal – the first eight of the game in this crucial opening period – and created consistent scoring opportunities throughout the evening. It won more faceoffs and also had more power plays.

By most metrics, Utah appeared to be the better team. Except for that annoying scoreboard.

“I don’t think we played badly,” said head coach André Tourigny. “I think we conceded four goals and lost the game and couldn't score, but I think we had a lot of opportunities. They scored at their first opportunity and then we forced things.”

A promising start turned around when Utah's Jack McBain and Ottawa's Noah Gregor were both called for roughing, resulting in two minutes of four-on-four hockey.

At the end of those two minutes it was: Ottawa 2, Utah 0.

Drake Batherson and Claude Giroux both took advantage of the open space and hit Connor Ingram to give the Senators a sudden lead.

Later in the period, Robert Burtuzzo was called for a holding penalty; and it only took a few seconds for Ottawa to capitalize on the power play, with Ridly Greig scoring an unassisted goal.

The senators weren't done yet.

In the final seconds before halftime, Brady Tkachuk rebounded a missed shot and fired it past Ingram for Ottawa's fourth goal of the period.

So what happened?

“Just little errors in coverage,” Utah captain Clayton Keller said. “The four-on-four game where you just lose the man in front of you, just these little mistakes can sometimes determine the game.”

That was certainly the case on Tuesday, as Utah put paid to an otherwise strong game.

“I don't like our four-on-four game since the beginning of the season… we gave up the (power play) goal and we give up a goal on the faceoff. The rest? “We didn’t give up much.” And we have a lot of opportunities, a lot of momentum,” Tourigny said.

Touriny replaced Ingram with Karel Vajmelka at the start of the second period, but he did not concede a goal. Even better, Utah didn't allow many good chances.

Another problem was that Ottawa's Anton Forsberg stopped all 31 of Utah's shots on goal. However, Tourigny would have liked Utah to challenge him a little more.

“We missed the best chances we had,” he said. “We had excellent chances where we didn't hit the net. Huge respect for their goalkeeper – he played a good game, made a few crucial saves, but I don’t think we tested him enough.”

Tourigny wishes Utah had put more traffic in front of the net for rebound opportunities or deflections. Or at least get him to save. In the second period, Josh Doan had a one-on-one chance but missed the shot.

That was far from the only missed opportunity.

“Whether it’s a breakaway, a slot shot or whatever, we didn’t hit the net,” Tourigny said. “So he (Forsberg) was good, but how good? We don’t know because we didn’t go into the net.”