Utah Grizzlies: Inconsistency plagues season-opening loss

WEST VALLEY CITY — The Utah Grizzlies played very solid hockey throughout the majority of their ECHL home-opener against Idaho at the E-Center on Friday evening.

Unfortunately for the Grizz, inconsistency struck at inopportune moments.

Utah came unglued on a couple of occasions, most notably midway through the second period, and ultimately couldn't recover.

After battling back to take a 2-1 lead against Idaho midway through the second period, Utah gave up back-to-back goals within the span of two minutes and never could find a tying goal en route to a 3-2 loss to the Steelheads in front of 7,192 fans.

"You just gotta play even keel," said Utah forward James Sixsmith. "We get a goal, and we think we're on top of the world. And before you know it, we're down and then we're in the dumps. It's not a roller-coaster out there. You gotta play consistent hockey every shift for 60 minutes, and we definitely didn't do that tonight.

"We had some great ones, but we had some terrible ones. You don't even need the great ones — you just need them all to be good."

Utah will host Idaho again Saturday at 7 p.m. in the second of a two-game series, and the Grizz will undoubtedly hope to play with much more consistency when they take the ice.

In the home-opener, inconsistency clearly killed the Grizzlies.

With 5:50 played in the second period, Utah jumped out to a one-goal lead when Shea Guthrie scored a nice goal from close range.

The lead, however, didn't last long. Idaho's Tyler Spurgeon scored from the wing to level the score at 2-2 less than four minutes later, and less than two minutes after that, Ashtom Rome scored again for Idaho to put the Steelheads up 3-2.

"We had a couple of mental breakdowns," said Utah forward Tom May. "We got away from the system we wanted, and they took full advantage of it. They played a pretty smart hockey game, and every chance we gave them, they capitalized."

In fairness to the Grizzlies, they were awfully unlucky to not have found a tying goal throughout the rest of the game.

Utah came within inches of scoring during goalmouth scrambles at the end of the second and third periods, with several other scoring chances mixed in between those two moments.