‘The roof blew off’: Hockey energizes Delta Center crowd

The Utah Hockey Club will not be held liable for hearing loss incurred at its first-ever home game.
On Monday, the Delta Center was sold out, and from the moment security started letting fans into the building until after an overtime goal to beat the Los Angeles Kings, the building was energized. All-Star winger Clayton Keller scored in overtime to give Utah a 3-2 preseason victory.
“I mean, the roof blew off,” Utah forward Liam O’Brien said. “So, I mean, yeah, it’s, it was just cool. And the energy was just, like I said, unreal.”
It’s clear that Utah’s players understand the assignment: They need to sell hockey to the people of Salt Lake City — and they did just that.
“We’re all excited to be a part of this,” forward Lawson Crouse said. “It’s something really special with the fans that we had in here. We could really feel it on the bench, and a lot of credit for them. We love having that energizing impact in the game, and it gives us a huge edge.”
Fans barely sat down in the last five minutes of the second period, which featured two goals and two fights.
“You could tell they’re wanting to cheer for something,” Crouse said. “And, you know, a couple goals and the first couple fights got them really into it, and they stayed into it.”
O’Brien had a message for the new hockey fans in Utah.
“That’s just a taste,” he said.
O’Brien, nicknamed “Spicy Tuna,” dropped the gloves first in a spirited bout with Jeff Malott.
“Someone ran (goalie Connor Ingram) and a few other guys were running around, and I just wanted to make sure that it slowed down a bit,” O’Brien said. “You want to make sure guys are healthy — especially our goaltender.”
Immediately after the next faceoff, former Utah Grizzly Travis Barron threw down with Jack Studnicka, the one who had run into Ingram. Barron handled Studnicka with ease, delivering far more punches than he received.
The fights were sandwiched by goals: one immediately before and another less than two minutes after. If the fans weren’t excited already, they certainly were after that.
The Kings responded with a pair of goals in the second period, but Keller scored the winning goal 19 seconds into overtime, tallying Utah’s first home game in the win column.
Utah can’t survive if it plays this way all season. UHC put mostly a complete NHL roster on the ice, with a few exceptions, while the Kings hardly had a bonafide NHL-er in the lineup.
That being said, head coach Andre Tourigny is not worried.
“It’s preseason,” he said after the game. “There’s a lot of rust. … All in all, the reason why you play those preseason (games) is to get that rust out.”
Utah did show flashes. The aforementioned goals and fights all came at opportune times and there were a number of instances in which it seemed UHC would never turn the puck over. If Utah can turn those flashes into tendencies, it’ll have a good season.
Continuing with the theme of “it’s just the preseason,” the players seem to need some time to get the systems down and build chemistry with each other.
Defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, Utah’s big offseason addition, had some sloppy passes, one of which led to a turnover and a solid scoring chance in front of his own net.
The Kings scored on a five-on-three, largely because UHC had two forwards on the ice. That being said, Tourigny stated after the game that this was an intentional decision because he wanted veterans playing in a tough situation like that. Regardless, the Kings scored.
On a number of occasions, defenseman Juuso Valimaki did the unthinkable for a defenseman and stood in front of the opponent’s net, looking for deflections and rebounds. A guy who scored two goals last season has no business doing that.
After a three-day break, UHC heads out to Las Vegas on Friday and Colorado on Sunday.