The early excitement surrounding the Utah Mammoth is starting to wane.
Ever since their seven-game win streak came to an end in Edmonton, they’re 1-5-0, with the lone win coming in overtime.
Their latest loss came at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. Here’s the story.
Quick catchup
Montreal Canadiens: 6
Utah Mammoth: 2
Saturday started like many other Mammoth games: Utah got on the board early — this time courtesy of Kailer Yamamoto three minutes in, but holding their leads proved difficult for the road team.
Before the end of the first period, Oliver Kapanen had scored to tie it up. Lawson Crouse finished on a great passing play by his line mates to restore the lead, but it took just 42 seconds of playing time for Cole Caufield to even the score again.
It was all Habs from there on out. Alex Newhook, Caufield, Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach scored, in that order, taking the lead and then extending it to the point of no return.
“I don’t think the result (reflects) what happened on the ice,” said Mammoth coach André Tourigny. “I think they’re a good team. They executed, and they were really opportunistic in their opportunities.”
Takeaways
What’s going wrong for the Mammoth?
In most of the Mammoth’s recent losses, they’ve had one bad period:
- Five goals against in P2 @ Edmonton.
- Three goals against in P3 @ Toronto.
- Three goals against in P3 @ Montreal.
Outside of that, they either won or tied all but two periods over the course of those games, and they were never outscored by more than one goal in any of them.
They need to find a way to play 60 minutes of consistent hockey, rather than having 40 good minutes and 20 bad ones.
Crouse, Uta’s associate captain who skated in his 600th NHL game on Saturday, explained the latest loss in his postgame interview.
“It just kind of snowballed and got away from us too quickly,” he said. “I think that’s a message to our group: It can go quick in this league if you’re not on your details. We’ve got to find a way to start coming out with some wins here.”
But if 600 games teaches a player anything, it’s that you can’t dwell on wins or losses.
“Quick reset here,” Crouse continued. “It’s time to move on to Ottawa, and it’s a big way to end our trip. Can either go .500 or not, so we need to be ready to go tomorrow.”
New lines, same result
The biggest factor in the Mammoth’s win streak was the dual threat of their top two lines. Some nights, Clayton Keller’s line would carry the team offensively. Other nights, it was Logan Cooley’s line, and in a couple of instances, both were firing on all cylinders.
For whatever reason, both groups have cooled off. In an attempt to rekindle something, Tourigny opted to swap Cooley with Barrett Hayton on Saturday. Cooley played a considerable amount of time with Keller and Nick Schmaltz last season, and Hayton is more than familiar with Dylan Guenther.
While the idea was good, the practicality of it just didn’t work. No player from either line was on the ice for a goal, and there was little improvement — visually or statistically — from either line in terms of scoring chances and expected goal share.
The other major change was putting Kevin Stenlund on the power play. The power play went 1 for 6 in the face-off circle in Toronto on Wednesday, so the Mammoth wanted Stenlund, a noted face-off specialist, to help the first unit start with the puck more.
It didn’t yield the result they wanted. The Mammoth went 1 for 5 on power play face-offs in Montreal. The other factor is that rather than having Guenther and his elite shot on the power play, they had a defensive forward trying to make plays.
It just didn’t work.
Tourigny had to try something so he deserves the credit for not fearing change, but those particular changes were not the answers.
Depth scoring? Check.
A number of depth players have really stepped up for Utah in this time of scoring drought:
- Lawson Crouse: 2 goals, 3 points in last 4 games.
- Kailer Yamamoto: 2 goals, 3 points in last 5 games.
- Michael Carcone: 1 goal, 2 points in last 2 games.
- Ian Cole: 3 assists in last 4 games.
- John Marino: 2 assists in last 3 games.
That type of scoring is great on a supplementary basis, but you’re rarely going to win if that’s the only offense you’re getting.
Goal of the game
Third line’s team effort
Check out the passing between all three guys on this line.
It’s also important to note Olli Määttä’s impact on the goal. He didn’t get credit for an assist, but the goal doesn’t happen without his heads-up play, seeing that the Canadiens were changing and rushing back to throw the puck up the ice before they could get set.