West Valley City, Utah – Dryden McKay stopped 25 shots and was instrumental in killing off nearly nine minutes of shorthanded time as the Bloomington Bison defeated the Utah Grizzlies 3-1 at the Maverik Center on Saturday evening.
The Bison surged early, but Utah scored on its first shot of the game to go up 1-0 just four minutes and 38 seconds into regulation for what would be its only goal. Two minutes later, Mikael Robidoux squared off with a Grizzly at center ice for a fight and helped to return momentum to the visitors. Bloomington drew a penalty just past the halfway mark of the frame, but was not able to score on the man-advantage. Shortly after the game returned to five-on-five, the Bison were assessed a penalty of their own and completed nearly the entire kill. With five seconds left on the minor, Utah was sent to the box to bring up a handful’s worth of four-on-four before Bloomington went back to the powerplay. The special teams play denied Utah opportunities to surge in offensive ice and allowed the Bison to take an 8-5 shot advantage into the pivotal middle stanza.
Merely three and a half minutes in, Lou-Felix Denis blasted in his ninth goal of the season from Nikita Sedov and Cullen Ferguson to knot the score. With the helper, Ferguson recorded his third assist of the weekend. Another powerplay chance came and went for Bloomington, but the Bison would find more even-strength success for the eventual game-winning goal. With Robidoux lurking deep in neutral ice, Chris Ortiz connected with him on a pass and the former lobbed the puck off of Utah’s netminder from the far circle on a partial breakaway. On the near side of the rink, a yawning cage invited Brad Morrisson to bury his second tally as a Bison and the visitors cashed in to gain their first lead of the weekend at 15:48. Immediately following Grizzlies possession off the ensuing faceoff at center ice, Robidoux was nabbed with a charging major and game misconduct. With three minutes and 50 seconds left in the period, McKay was steadfast in his crease and was credited with 12 saves in the period.
Bloomington completed the remaining 70 seconds of penalty kill carryover time on the major and once again failed to capitalize on a powerplay with just over 12 minutes left. Shortly thereafter, the Bison succeeded in negating Utah’s third powerplay and locked in to fend off six-on-five play in the final two minutes. Sullivan Mack punctuated the 3-1 victory with an empty-net goal from Morrison and Zakary Karpa with 13 seconds left on the clock, and McKay earned nine more saves en route to defeating the team from which he was acquired by Bloomington in November of 2025.
You must be logged in to post a comment.