Grizzlies drop AHL opener to Rampage

WEST VALLEY CITY— For much of Friday night's American Hockey League lidlifter on the Grizzlies' 10th anniversary season of hockey and ninth year in Utah, the San Antonio Rampage took it to the home boys about the way Colorado State took it to BYU on the football field the night before.

In this case, there were some extenuating circumstances.

San Antonio, which lost half of a four-goal lead in the third period to win 4-2, had played two exhibition games against Houston. The Grizzlies, who have no close-by AHL teams, had no pre-season.

It showed.

"Our details in our game weren't really strong, and I think that's from lack of playing together," said third-year Utah coach Don Hay. "We missed some assignments, and we'll get better as we move along. We were making mistakes, and we looked lost at times, but those are things that we'll correct."

While things did not look organized at times, Hay said his team kept working throughout the game.

In front of goalie Jason Bacashihua, there were giveaways and teammates running into each other instead of opponents, creating difficult situations. He made some strong saves early, especially on a short-handed San Antonio 2-on-1 opportunity midway through the first period and a breakaway opportunity against a short-handed Utah by the Rampage's Derek Shvidki with four minutes left in the first.

Shvidki had just assisted a goal at 5:06 by Jaroslav Bednar.

It was a score that Hay had coveted. If Utah could have just gotten that first goal and gotten the crowd of 7,710 into the game, things might have gone more smoothly, Hay ventured.

Instead, San Antonio used its size and speed and two games of exhibition cohesion to mount a 4-0 lead, though Bacashihua played reasonably well.

"I think he played pretty well," Hay observed, though he will start goalie Mike Smith tonight when the Grizzlies pay a visit to San Antonio at 6 MDT.

"I don't think he had chances on the goals. The first goal was a bang-bang play. The last one was a bang-bang play. The second goal was a point shot with lots of traffic, and the third one was a turnover, another bang-bang play," said Hay.

"I know we gave up too many easy goals."

Meanwhile, the Grizzlies have to learn to get more traffic in front of the other team's net. Hay didn't like it that the 47 or so minutes of shutout goalkeeping by San Antonio's Travis Scott made him the first star of the game. Hay hopes for more congestion and second and third shots from in-close tonight from his team.