Karel Weimelka made a career-high 49 saves and the Utah Hockey Club scored three goals in 2:19 of the third period against the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday in Salt Lake City, making it 4-0. I won with 1.
For Utah, Nick Bjugstad had two goals and Michael Kesselring had two assists. Jack McBain and Mikhail Sergachev scored Utah’s other goals, but both came during the chaos of the third period.
Martin Necas’ power-play goal in the second period was the only point for the Hurricanes, despite a staggering 50-21 shooting advantage and six power-play opportunities.
With the game tied at 1-1 at 5:09 of the final frame, Kesselring made a great play to bring the puck to the Carolina side and made a deft pass to McBain for the conversion.
Sergachev added another point at the 7:11 mark, and just 17 seconds later Büyugstad scored his second goal of the game, giving the hosts a 4-1 lead.
Playing in just his fifth game of the season, Utah’s backup goaltender Weimerka had a career night.
Weimerka and the Utah Hockey Club defenders had to do a great job on an overtime penalty kill in the third period. A scuffling/game misconduct penalty on Michael Kirkone took up most of Carolina’s nine minutes of power play time in the final frame, but the Hurricanes were unable to add any extra points.
This is the second time Carolina has lost in its past 11 games (9-2-0).
Pioty Kochetkov, the Hurricanes’ starting goaltender, stopped 15 of 18 shots in 46 minutes, 45 seconds of ice time, and Spencer Martin stopped 2 of 3 shots in relief. Defenseman Sean Walker accidentally collided with Kochetkov over McBain’s goal, and an upset Kochetkov was sent off after Sergachev scored.
Büyugstad took the lead at 17:55 of the first period. Vygstad’s goals were his first two of the season after the veteran forward missed Utah Hockey Club’s first eight games with an upper-body injury.
Necas scored 22 points (eight goals, 14 assists) on a career-high 11-game point streak.
–Field level media
