Grizz playoff hopes dimming

WEST VALLEY CITY — It's not impossible, just difficult and unlikely.

The Utah Grizzlies' American Hockey League playoff hopes were dealt a serious and near-fatal blow Friday night when the San Antonio Rampage jumped in front 3-0 and held on for a 5-2 victory, despite being outshot by the Grizzlies, 35-20.

Josh Olson and Paul Healey each scored a pair of goals for San Antonio before a crowd of 6,304 in the E Center, leaving the Grizzlies with a tough task ahead of them.

The Grizzlies (26-39-6-5) entered the game five points out of fifth place and the West Division's final playoff spot. But the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks, who currently possess that final postseason berth, tied with Houston on Friday night to move six points ahead of the Grizzlies.

Utah has four games remaining, including the next two at home — tonight against San Antonio at 7:05 p.m. and Wednesday against Milwaukee. Cincinnati also has four games left, the last two at home.

Utah did win the season series against Cincinnati and thus holds the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Grizzlies need to earn six more points than the Mighty Ducks in the teams' final four games — a 3-1 finish for Utah and an 0-4 slump for Cincinnati would do it; or, another example, a 4-0 run by the Grizzlies and a 1-3 finish by Cincinnati.

"After beating Grand Rapids twice at home, having a hard-working team like San Antonio come in and beat us like this is disheartening," said Grizzlies captain Jarrod Skalde, who recorded his team-high 33rd assist late in the game. "We'll need a lot more help than when the day started, and if we can just focus on our games . . . Obviously, tomorrow night (tonight) is the season.

"I just can't explain why we, in a playoff battle like this, come out and, you know, not have a better performance against a team we needed to beat."

Thanks to the win, San Antonio is not out of the picture, either. Far from it. The Rampage (27-38-8) is only a point behind the Grizz, has seven more games to play and holds the tiebreaker over Utah.

"We were just not the same tonight as we had been in the past five games," said Utah coach Don Hay. "We didn't play with a lot of emotion. We didn't get a lot of shots early."San Antonio opened the scoring 2:14 into the game, taking advantage of a two-on-one breakaway and a sweet pass through the slot from Gregory Campbell to Denis Shvidki for Shvidki's 15th goal.