SALT LAKE CITY—The Delta Center crowd saw goaltender Karel Vejmelka’s career-best performance as the Utah Hockey Club upset one of the NHL’s hottest teams. Vejmelka punctuated his memorable performance by holding Carolina scoreless during an 8:24 power play stretch in the final period.
As the clock ticked down on a 4-1 win, the home crowd chanted ‘Ve-Ji, Ve-Ji, Ve-Ji!’ to honor Vejmelka after he made 49 saves to upend the Carolina Hurricanes and the league’s best offense.
Karel Vejmelka might have just turned in the greatest regular season goaltending performance I've seen in the advanced stats era.
Vejmelka finishes with 49 saves, 7.00 GSAx.#NHL #UtahHC pic.twitter.com/66ntVx8Nc8
— Chase (@ChasinPucks) November 14, 2024
The Czech Republic native was outstanding all night, making multiple highlight saves against a high-scoring opponent.
Under fire, seemingly every second he was on the ice, Vejmelka was other-worldly on the power play. Despite 25 minutes at a disadvantage, he held the Hurricanes to one PP goal.
Vejmelka is now 1-3 in four starts for Utah HC in 2024.
As it currently stands, the Utah Hockey Club is fourth in the Central Division with a 6-6-3 overall record, far from panicking and about where most probably would’ve predicted they’d be this many games into the new season. However, with so many losses over the last few weeks and struggles on both ends of the ice, continued experimentation and changes are needed to figure things out.
Related: Three Highs, Three Lows For Utah Hockey Club After 13 Games
We’re back 😎#UtahHC pic.twitter.com/CmQt35cHre
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) November 14, 2024
As one of Utah’s most seasoned veterans and someone who knows how to turn things around, defenseman Ian Cole, a member of the 2016 Stanley Cup Champion Penguins roster who flipped a nightmare season into a dream, shared that Utah needs to look at it from every angle and be open to necessary changes.
“Along the way here, we need to continue to make changes and be mature about it and say, hey, this is what worked, this is what didn’t work, we’re going to continue to do this, we’re going to change this, and we’re going to improve this,” Cole said regarding the situation.
“We need to take a step back, try to look at it as objectively as we can. I mean, some of the underlying numbers are really good, some of them aren’t good enough. So, what do we need to fix, what do we need to change, what do we keep the same, what do we improve on? These are all questions we’re trying to systematically answer and move forward.” he added.
Utah Hockey Club games can be viewed on SEG+. Fans can also tune in on air on the KSL Sports APP or 97.5 and 1280 The Zone. Click here for the full schedule.
Cole Bagley is the Utah Hockey Club insider for KSL Sports. Keep up with him on X here. Listen to Cole break down the team on KSL Sports Zone and KSL 5 TV.
Find KSLSports.com coverage of the Utah Hockey Club here.
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Brian Preece is a KSLsports.com insider covering Locals in MLB and Salt Lake Bees. Follow Brian’s Bees and Beehive baseball coverage here.
