Hockey is a game of mistakes. A trio of them cost the Utah Hockey Club in a tightly contested, 3-1 road loss to the Ottawa Senators on Sunday at Canadian Tire Centre. An errant pass led to a turnover and Ridly Greig's second-period shorthanded goal. A missed assignment in the defensive zone allowed Claude Giroux to recover Tim Stützle's pass and deke goaltender Karel Vejmelka to the ice before flipping in the game-winner at 7:33 of the third period.
With Utah pressing for the game-tying goal, Brady Tkachuk added a late third-period goal for the Senators, who moved into third place in the Atlantic Division. Tkachuk had gone 10 games without a point.
"I think we played good until we gave up the second goal," Utah coach André Tourigny said. "We were stingy defensively, we created off our forecheck, off our intensity, and we had enough offense. Unfortunately, we made a mistake [on their second goal] and then that threw us off a little bit. I didn't like the way we responded to that."
Barrett Hayton and Logan Cooley each had a partial breakaway that they could not convert against Ottawa goalie Leevi Meriläinen (34 saves).
With the loss, Utah (21-21-7) missed a chance to gain ground on the Calgary Flames for the second Western Conference wild card spot after the Flames lost in Winnipeg. Utah trails Calgary by six points.
Utah, which was playing its third game in four nights, finished the road trip 1-2 and will have two days off before it is back in action in Salt Lake City on Wednesday.
Karel Vekmelka had 24 saves and Clayton Keller scored his 18th goal of the season for Utah.
Career year for Keller? Maybe Tourigny should find ways to slight Keller. The Utah captain sure has been playing with a chip on his shoulder since he was left off Team USA's 4 Nations Face-Off roster. Keller had a second-period goal on Sunday to extend his point streak to seven games (his career high is 14). In that span, Keller has four goals and 13 points.
The streak has not only helped Keller get back on a point-per-game pace — he surpassed it for the first time in the 2022-23 season with 86 points in 82 games and nearly did it again last season with 76 points in 78 games — he is on pace for more than a point per game and he's on pace for a career year. If Keller keeps up at his current pace, he will post 91 points.
McBain bringing pain: Utah forward Jack McBain enjoys an advantage over many of his NHL brethren for the simple reason that he is 6 feet 4 and 219 pounds. Earlier in his career, the coaches and management staff implored him to use that size to outmuscle and intimidate opponents. McBain got the message. Entering Sunday's game, he was ninth in the NHL in hits with 164. He added three more against the Senators.
Quotable: "We played a patient game," Utah defenseman Olli Määttä said. "At the same time, when you have tight games like that, I think we gave them two easy ones and you just can't win games when you do that."
Up next: Utah gets two days off before hosting Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and the Pittsburgh Penguins at Delta Center at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday. In the only other meeting of the season, Dylan Guenther had two goals and an assist, Clayton Keller had three assists and Karel Vejmelka stopped 27 shots in a 6-1 victory on Nov. 23 at PPG Paints Arena.
