Rust was the word of choice for Utah Mammoth players and coaches following their 4-2 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday.
It had been 21 days since their most recent game, and while they attempted to get back into game form with plenty of practice time, it’s just not the same as an actual NHL game.
Here’s the story, as well as the things that the Mammoth need to do to get their momentum going again.
Quick catchup
Colorado Avalanche: 4
Utah Mammoth: 2
If you like goals, all you needed to see was the second period. All six of this game’s goals came during the middle frame.
Brock Nelson thought he’d opened the scoring in the first, but his goal was called back after a Mammoth coach’s challenge determined that he’d interfered with goaltender Karel Vejmelka. He’d later rectify that, though, with his 30th goal of the season after Parker Kelly and Victor Olofsson had already struck for the Avalanche.
Dylan Guenther tied his career high in goals, scoring his 26th and 27th of the season against the Avalanche. One came on his signature power play one-timer, which he hasn’t used as much in recent months.
Martin Nečas seemed to take inspiration from Guenther’s one-timer, scoring an identical goal later on in the period on an Avalanche power play. Going into the game, the Avalanche and the Mammoth were respectively the worst and second-worst power play teams, so it’s coincidental that they both scored with the man-advantage when they faced each other.
Tidbits and takeaways
Logan Cooley’s return doesn’t guarantee anything
Mammoth fans were greeted with hopeful news ahead of the game: Logan Cooley and Alexander Kerfoot were back and healthy, while the league’s leading scorer, Nathan MacKinnon, would not be suiting up for the Avalanche.
If there’s ever such thing as an easier game against the league’s best team, this was it. But the Mammoth just couldn’t pull it off.
Head coach André Tourigny offered an explanation in his postgame interview.
“When Cools went down, everybody thought, ‘... What will happen?’ Are we not something like 16-11 without Cools? Because everybody did what they had to do,” he said. “... Everybody just bought in (to) how they had to play and we were successful. So (it) doesn’t matter who you have in the lineup if you have that aggression, that intensity (that) characterizes us, it won’t work.”
Cooley dazzled on a number of occasions throughout the game — including an ankle-breaker on Zakhar Bardakov — and registered his first point since Nov. 28. But Tourigny was not impressed with the overall game of the 21-year-old.
“Like everybody else, I think I saw a lot of rust and tough decisions with the puck and not playing fast at all, with and without the puck,” he said.
From a full-team standpoint, Cooley agreed.
“You could tell there was some rust out there, and I don’t think it was just small details,” he said. “It was losing battles, not coming back quick enough, not defending in front, little things like that that are our identity and what makes us successful. And we didn’t do that tonight.”
Momentum is paramount
The question going into this game was whether the upper hand would belong to the well-rested team or the one that sent eight players to the Olympics. Tourigny didn’t have an answer to the question before the game, but once the puck dropped it became clear.
Utah enjoyed a great deal of momentum in the weeks heading into the break, with 12 wins in their last 17 games. They attempted to keep that momentum going by holding extra-long practices as soon as they were allowed, but they still struggled out of the gate.
Their next test isn’t an easy one, either. They host the fifth-placed Minnesota Wild, who, like the Avalanche, had eight players in Milan.
Utah has a 4-0-1 all-time record against Minnesota. If they can get back to their winning ways on Friday, maybe they can build that momentum back up.
Puck luck plays a factor, too
Bounces have been a major talking point in the hockey world this week. It’s a game of inches, and it was only a matter of inches by which MacKinnon and Devon Toews both missed their grade-A scoring chances in the gold medal game, allowing Team USA the opportunity to win it in overtime.
It was similarly a matter of inches by which Utah lost this game, even with the major flaws that Tourigny pointed out. Lawson Crouse drilled the crossbar on a partial breakaway, while Clayton Keller and another Mammoth player hit posts on excellent scoring chances.
All night long, the puck seemed to bobble at the exact moment guys went to shoot. It affected Keller on the power play and it probably saved another Nelson goal.
“The (ice) sheet wasn’t the best, I don’t think,” Guenther acknowledged after the game. “I mean, we haven’t played here in like three weeks, so I think it’s hard. But, again, they’re playing on that too and making less plays and maybe keeping it a little bit more simple.”
Goal of the game
Dylan Guenther’s one-timer
The power play one-timer just might be the most effective play in the modern era of the NHL. It takes great skill to pull it off consistently, but a lot of guys are able to build their careers on it.