Vancouver Canucks and Utah Hockey Club enter their collision in Salt Lake City on Sunday evening after losing their first matches after the four nations’ facial outages.
On Saturday, Canucks 3-1 to Vegas Golden Knights fell on the road and Utah lost in Los Angeles, 5-3 to the kings. But Vancouver and Utah will go back in the second game in their back-to-back sets.
Jake Debruss, who scored Vancouver’s only goal because Canucks had its winning line with three games that were snapped on Saturday, said it took some time to be adapted again after two weeks’ break.
“Just get the feeling of the puck, like outside the boards,” he said. “Like I felt rusty.”
Debrus reached the 20-goal plateau for the fourth time in his career when he gave Canucks a 1-0 lead 6:22 into the game. But that was the extent of Vancouver crime for the night.
Kevin Lankinen, who played for Finland in the Face-off of the four nations, made 32 rescues.
“We have to play more games,” said Canucks’ Kiefer Sherwood, who got the first assistant for Debrus’s goal. “I know Lankeys (Lankinen) in world class, but we left him out on an island too much.”
Star Center Elias Pettersson played for Canucks on Saturday after many doubted that his accessibility due to an unclear injury LED while playing for Sweden in the tournament. Pettersson was a minus-1 with a shot in just shy in 16 minutes of ice time. He has 34 points (11 goals, 23 assists) in 50 matches for the season.
Captain and reigning Norris Trophy-winning defender Quinn Hughes remained out with an oblique injury that has forced him to miss all Vancouver February games. He had been selected for the US 4 nations face-off team before he was injured.
Utah has meanwhile lost two of the last three matches.
Barrett Hayton was responsible for all Utah points on Saturday with its first career hat Trick and the first hat trick for the Utah Hockey Club. The franchise is in its first season in Salt Lake City after moving from Arizona.
“I like the fact that he was rewarded,” said Utah coach Andre Tourigny. “We often talk about how much” haytes “plays properly. He does everything right on and off the ice, has the right attitude, competing so hard. You can’t rejoice for him, so really happy for him.”
Hayton’s first goal gave Utah a 1-0 lead 7:54 into the game. His second goal put Utah forward 2-1 at 5:50 in the second period. Both goals came on power play. Hayton’s third goal came with nine minutes left and pulled the team to 4-3. But defender Mikey Anderson’s empty-net goal with 1:30 the remaining dressed the victory for the kings.
Hayton said that the joy he might have felt over the urgency is overshadowed by defeat.
“Right now it’s kind of just the game’s stick. At some point, I will look back. It’s cool to do,” said Hayton. “At this point it is frustrating to lose that game. It’s such a big game. I feel we kind of put our heart and soul in that game – our effort was there.”
Nick Schmaltz had two assists and Connor Ingram made 21 rescues.
Hayton has 32 points (15 goals, 17 assists) in 57 matches for the season.
Utah defender Sean Durzi returned after suffering a shoulder injury on October 14 and missing 52 matches. In 21:37 of the ice age Saturday he had an assist, four shots, two blocks, two giveaways and one takeaway.
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