'Waiting for the right time': Search continues for Utah's first 6-on-5 goal in loss to Kings

SALT LAKE CITY — Trailing the Los Angeles Kings 3-1 with less than three minutes to play, the Utah Hockey Club pulled goaltender Karel Vejmelka for an extra attacker.

Down two goals and with its slight playoffs chances on the line — a do-or-die situation — it made sense.

Still, for new fans of the game, the empty net can be a tough one to understand: Why take the goalie out and risk an easy goal against?

Utah head coach André Tourigny kept it simple after the game.

"To win," he said. "Losing 3-1 or 4-1, what's the difference? At the end of the day, you need to try to win."

Unfortunately for Utah, the hopes of scoring another goal to cut the Los Angeles lead in half — and perhaps another one afterward to tie the game up — were dashed when Kings defenseman Drew Doughty scored from behind his own goal line, finding the back of Utah's net from nearly 200 feet out.

It was the type of long-range shot that would have made basketball superstar Steph Curry blush, and it gave Los Angeles some added insurance.

Jack McBain added a late goal with 18 seconds left, but the damage was already done.

Scoring with the goalie pulled has been a season-long issue. Through 76 games, Utah remains the only team in the NHL without a six-on-five goal. Meanwhile, they've given up 16 with the net vacant.

While Tourigny's team has yet to find the back of the net with the extra skater, the team has seen the approach work against it, with seven goals counted against Utah when facing five-on-six situations.

In one example, Minnesota's Marco Rossi's goal with less than a minute remaining and his team's net empty forced overtime on Dec. 10. The Wild would go on to win 5-4 in a shootout, putting Utah on the wrong end of a successful extra attacker deployment.

"We talk about our plan, we meet on the bench and go over what we want to do — and they try to clear it all the way down, and it went in," said forward Lawson Crouse, who also said he didn't realize Utah hadn't scored with an extra attacker all season.

So, what needs to change?

"I think it's just urgency. Getting pucks to the net," Dylan Guenther said. "It's not going to be a pretty goal, probably, so just getting more pucks and bodies at the net."

As Utah clings to the slightest of playoff hopes with just six games remaining, the team may need to eventually find some magic in the form of an extra attacker goal to tie things up — or at least give itself a chance to win.

Tourigny is hoping his team is due for one, hopefully right when it needs it most.

"I guess we're waiting for the right time," he said.

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