Pittsburgh • Jack McBain keeps it simple and Utah Hockey Club is better for it.
The forward, who was moved up to play with Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther in the team’s 6-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins, got the scoring going for Utah in the way he knows best — a net-front goal.
Utah, as a whole, has struggled to find consistent offensive production this season. But McBain has been a prime example of what the team needs to do on a nightly basis: get to the crease and play the game with your heart on your sleeve.
“He has an A+ for me since the start of the season. He’s physical every night, driving every night,” head coach André Tourigny said.
“McBain never has an off night in terms of intensity, speed, drive, physicality, all those details. Some nights the puck is friendlier to him than others, but it’s never a matter of preparation, focus, desire.”
The puck was friendly to McBain on Saturday in Pittsburgh. It resulted in his sixth goal of the season and third in the last five games. It tied McBain with captain Clayton Keller for the second-most goals on the team, just behind Guenther who had nine.
Guenther found McBain stationed on the right doorstep in the first period to set up the scoring play. McBain earned inside ice and knocked in Guenther’s backhanded pass to make it 1-0 at 8:54. Cooley picked up the secondary assist.
“I think if you look around the league, that’s how a lot of the goals are scored. It’s hard to score, especially 5-on-5 in this league,” McBain said of net-front goals. “It usually comes off of breakdowns, rebounds, screens. It’s rare when you get a nice, end-to-end clear shot. It’s how they go in a lot of the time, so just try to keep going to the net and keep doing it.”
At 6-foot-4 and 219 pounds, McBain knows how to use his size to his advantage no matter who his linemates are. Prior to Saturday, McBain spent a few weeks on the fourth line with Kevin Stenlund and Michael Carcone. While that trio had more of a grinding, defensive purpose, McBain has tried to keep his game the same when up and down in the lineup.
“That’s something Bear (Tourigny) and I have talked about a bunch over the last couple years, is no matter where I play it’s the same role. …The guys I’m with change, but what I’ve got to do on the ice stays the same,” McBain said. “Big body, create space for them, keep driving the net hard and try to clean stuff up down there.”
Guenther and Cooley are two of Utah’s more promising young offensive players with 17 and 14 points, respectively, but they need someone like McBain to balance out the flair.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Hockey Club right wing Dylan Guenther (11) looks to pass during the game between the Utah Hockey Club and the Ottawa Senators at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024.
“We’ve got a little bit of everything on this line,” Cooley said. “We get pucks to the net. McBain is a big guy, likes to get in front of [the goaltender’s] eyes and it creates space for me and Guenther to find each other.”
In his third full NHL season, McBain not only seems to know his identity but has confidence in it. Even as he’s increasing his offensive output, McBain is not forgetting about the play away from the puck. The 24-year-old leads Utah with a cumulative 57 hits this season and had seven against the Penguins in 13:44 of ice time. He has also become a stalwart on the penalty kill.
McBain is already on the doorstep of tying last season’s high of eight and six goals away from tying his career high of 12. Good teams have secondary scoring from their bottom six – McBain has supplied that, even more so than the team’s expected primary contributors.
“He’s been one of our most consistent players,” Tourigny said.
