Grizzlies make progress with tie vs. Rampage

WEST VALLEY CITY — The steps are slow, but five games into the Utah Grizzlies' season, they weren't quite as painful to take.

Monday night against an unbeaten San Antonio team in the E Center, the winless Grizzlies finally avoided the AHL loss column. It wasn't a win — it was a 1-1 overtime tie. But it was a victory of sorts.

Utah took a step forward with its best game of the season, using exceptional penalty killing and overall defense to hold San Antonio, a team that averaged 28-plus shots a game coming into Monday, to just 15 shots.

"I thought our play was really consistent from start to finish," said coach Don Hay. "We played pretty hard again. I thought our guys battled another night for 65 minutes. We only came up with one point, but you have to build on getting points. If we continue to work hard, good things will happen.

That shots-against total included only three Rampage shots in the third period, the period that seems to be Utah's downfall almost every game.

To some extent, it was again Utah's problem period. The Rampage scored on one of their three shots to create the tie, Josh Olson put home a long rebound of Petr Taticek's shot that came because the puck got momentarily lost in a crowd that included referee Dan O'Rourke, who was trying to avoid traffic at the right faceoff circle with 4:44 gone.

But Utah defended well in that period and in the overtime, even though it had to bail its way out of an overtime penalty-kill situation.

"That overtime penalty kill was outstanding. That was the key part of the game," said Hay, adding that the Grizzlies shouldn't get down about getting a lot of shots on the net without many going in. Monday night, they put 38 on Rampage goalie Travis Scott with just one getting past him.

"Our penalty killing was really solid, and we had lots of good puck movement on the power play, and lots of shots. We couldn't capitalize," Hay said. "Lots of shots means you're working hard and low shots-against means you're doing a good job checking. Those are positive things. We need to continue to build on those."

The one Grizzly to find the goal joked that he did it with his eyes closed.

Winger Justin Cox was part of three Grizzlies who found themselves on a fast break against two defenders late in the first period.

Still using their defensemen sneaking up into the offense in the first period Monday, as they'd done late in Sunday's game, the Grizzlies put some pressure on the San Antonio net, getting 15 shots in the period, tying their season high.