At this point in the season, if you’re eliminated from the playoffs, you’re left without your main reason for playing: the Stanley Cup.
After all, if the ultimate motivation is to become a champion, it’s hard not to start shifting focus to next season once that goal is off the table.
But for the Utah Hockey Club, it doesn’t matter that the Stanley Cup is out of reach—something the team made clear with a 5–3 win over the Dallas Stars playing in front of its home crowd.
Instead, Utah is practicing what it’s preaching, using the end of the season to build momentum.
Case in point: Utah’s perfect power play performance.
Going 4-for-4 on the power play is impressive for any NHL team. But what makes this feat especially significant for Utah is that it continues to build on the recent success of its power play, a sharp contrast to a 10-game stretch in which Utah ranked in the bottom three league-wide in power play goals.
Over its last four games, Utah has gone 9-for-15 on the power play, leading to three wins—two of which came against Central Division playoff teams, Dallas and Winnipeg.
The only loss in that stretch? A 4–3 shootout defeat to the Nashville Predators on Fan Appreciation Night, which also happened to be the only game in that span where Utah failed to score a power play goal, going 0-for-2.
Utah Hockey Club's Home Finale Features Award Ceremony, Fan Appreciation... And A Shootout Loss
The Delta Center is going to look mighty empty real soon.
While that wasn’t the sole reason for the loss—in fact, Utah’s typically strong penalty kill struggled, allowing two goals on three Nashville power plays—it was a rare off night for a team that's confident in its penalty kill.
For Utah to follow up that performance with a perfect power play outing shows a team focused on growth, momentum and building habits, not flukes.
Its showing against Dallas’s penalty kill proved just that, with four different Utah players scoring power play goals, a promising sign for a team that, just weeks ago, was struggling to even generate shots with the man advantage.
But for players like Josh Doan or Sean Durzi to score power play goals shows that Utah is not only generating the shots on goal it previously lacked, but that its also not relying solely on a Dylan Guenther one-timer or some playmaking from Clayton Keller to get it done.
Even when a power play goal does come from one of its primary scorers—like Barrett Hayton crashing the blue paint, this time redirecting a Mikhail Sergachev shot off his body, or the goal from Nick Schmaltz—it’s still encouraging to see different power play units finding success.
Just a month ago, if Durzi, Doan, or Jack McBain had been part of a power play goal, as they were in this game, it would have been considered surprising.
But now, Utah is finding power play success from two, even three, of its units, and its game against the Stars exemplified that growth.
Now, Utah finding out that its relatively young team is far more capable than they realized, at least with the power play in this case. It is certainly a step in the right direction and should carry over into next season.
If Utah had decided it didn't want to play or that it wanted to get as high in the draft as possible, this wouldn't have happened
So while Utah didn’t appear to have much reason to play as hard as it did in this game, other than to spite a division rival like the Stars and ruin their chances of securing the top seed in the Western Conference, Utah is showing there’s still plenty of growth to be had.
With Utah Eliminated From Playoff Contention, What's Next?
Last night, the Utah Hockey Club was officially eliminated from playoff contention. They needed the Minnesota Wild to lose to the San Jose Sharks—but the Wild pulled out a wild 8–7 win in overtime.
And hey, if a young player like Doan ends up scoring more goals next season, or if Utah finishes with a top-ten power play percentage, then this late-season stretch, while technically meaningless in the standings, could prove to be a major catalyst for the team’s future success.
With two games remaining—one a rematch against the Nashville team that spoiled Utah’s final home game, and the other against a St. Louis team whose 12-game winning streak effectively ended Utah’s playoff hopes—you can expect a fiery Utah squad looking to prove its skill.