The Utah Mammoth will not go 41-0 at home this season.
It’s not a particularly bold statement, but they managed to get through the entire month of October without losing at the Delta Center.
That streak ended, though, when the Tampa Bay Lightning beat them 4-2 in Salt Lake City on Sunday.
Through 12 games, the Mammoth are now 8-4 — good enough to put them sixth in league standings and third in the Central Division.
Here’s the story from Sunday’s game.
Quick catchup
Tampa Bay Lightning: 4
Utah Mammoth: 2
Lawson Crouse woke the crowd up 5:55 into the game, scoring on a breakaway. He’d had a number of breakaway chances earlier in the season, but the back-checker had always been able to catch up to him. He didn’t let that happen this time, though.
The Lightning tied it up before the end of the first period, thanks to one of the nicest passes you’ll see all season. It was Utah GM Bill Armstrong draft pick Emil Lilleberg who set it up, with Yanni Gourde in the perfect position to tap it in.
Anthony Cirelli scored a quick one for the lone goal of the second period, and Kailer Yamamoto matched it with one of his own 2:21 into the third.
Jake Guentzel, whose broken stick directly led to the Yamamoto goal, redeemed himself by scoring the game-winner.
“I guess you could look at it like that,” he said after the game in response to the notion of redemption.
A Brandon Hagel empty-netter sealed the deal, giving the Lightning five straight wins.
Takeaways
Stopping the top six
Up until Sunday, the Mammoth’s top six forwards had recorded points on 82.5% of the team’s goals. For the first time this season, they were held off the scoresheet entirely on Sunday.
“You’ve got to defend against them and play the right way, not give them any momentum on your mistakes,” said Lightning forward Zemgus Girgensons.
Mammoth head coach André Tourigny gave his opponent credit for its ability to defend.
“They’re number one in every metric,” he said. “They play heavy, they make good plays on the breakout, they hold (onto) pucks. You have to go to work. You won’t surprise that team with just your skill — they have skill, too."
Tampa’s game plan was simply to not give Utah any extra opportunities. Lightning head coach Jon Cooper recalled his team’s visit to the Delta Center last year, when the Mammoth seemed to turn every turnover into a goal.
“The big thing for us was protecting on the fast breaks and we did a really good job of that,” he said. “If a team made a mistake, both teams had the ability to make you pay, but that’s what we try to limit.
Utah’s next seven games are against teams that are in the bottom half of the league in terms of goals against, so there will be ample opportunities for both Clayton Keller’s line and Logan Cooley’s line to get back into its groove.
Bottom six stepping up
Utah’s top forward groups didn’t impact the game as much as they would have liked, but the bottom six stepped up in their stead to keep them in the game.
On an individual level, most of those guys hadn’t started the season the way they’d probably wanted, so a game like this should take a bit of the weight off their shoulders.
A major part of the bottom six’s job is to provide energy to both the team and the crowd. Obviously their two goals did that, but so did their tendency to get involved in the rough stuff.
Being a Sunday afternoon, the building wasn’t quite as energetic as it often is, but every whistle with those guys on the ice seemed to give the fans something to cheer for.
“I thought we played good,” Yamamoto said after the game. “I thought we started the game a little slow, but I feel like as the game went on, we found everything.”
Mammoth are strong, but not invincible
A seven-game win streak garnered some rare mainstream media attention for the Mammoth, but within the context of a full 82-game season, seven wins is not enough to get the job done.
“I think we’re still at the time of the season where we’re learning about ourselves and we keep reworking our game,” Tourigny said. “The start of the season doesn’t define your season.”
He pointed out that although their 8-3 record coming into this game was good for them, it’s nothing particularly special.
“Everybody in the league — the 32 teams — will go 8-3 at some point. We cannot get carried away. We need to be consistent," he said.
Ian Cole, who had a pair of assists for Utah on Sunday, agreed.
“This wasn’t our best game, and we know that,” he said. “Now we have to respond. We can’t let two (losses) turn into three, turn to four, turn to five. That’s how you find yourself out of a playoff spot, so we have to fix this right away.”
Goal of the game
Lawson Crouse’s breakaway
No matter how well he’s playing, it always seems like Lawson Crouse is due for a goal. He’d had a handful of breakaway chances already this year, but hadn’t been able to capitalize on any of them until this one.
He made no mistake firing it past Jonas Johansson for the 1-0 lead and his second goal of the season.