After suffering three three-goal losses in a four-game home stand, the Utah Mammoth needed a win in more ways than one on Saturday.
They got it against the Los Angeles Kings, finishing with a 6-2 victory. Logan Cooley and Alexander Kerfoot led the charge with two goals each, while Mikhail Sergachev ended the game with four assists.
The Kings had been sneaking up on the Mammoth in the standings, so the Mammoth needed L.A. to lose almost as much as they themselves needed to win.
“It was kind of a four-point game for us,” Sergachev said. “It was huge.”
Trends for the Utah Mammoth
Goaltending
In back-to-back games previous to this one, the Mammoth had to replace their starting goalie with the backup due to poor performance, and the most problematic part is that it was Karel Vejmelka one night and Vítek Vaněček the other.
When neither one of your goalies is playing well, you have a 6’x4′ problem.
But Vejmelka bounced back on Saturday, making 29 saves on 31 shots.
“I think he was in danger tonight, and he made some key stops and he played unbelievable,” Sergachev said of Vejmelka. “Pulling or not pulling (the goalie) the previous game, it doesn’t matter. We’re all for Veggie and (Vaněček) and they’re all for us. We do our jobs and they do their jobs.
“... Most of the time, if they keep playing like that, we’re going to win more than we’re going to lose. We have a lot of trust in our goalies. They’re amazing.”
After Thursday’s 7-4 loss to the Washington Capitals, Mammoth head coach André Tourigny stood up for his goalies, saying the entire team was at fault rather than just the netminders. On Saturday, he doubled down.
“The problem was everybody and the success is everybody,” he said. “We helped Vej today by not giving (up) a ton of quality (chances), but Vej was rock-solid when we did give (up) quality.”
Power play
Last season, Utah finished 10th in the NHL in power play efficiency. This year, the Mammoth have been a bottom-five team in that regard.
But over the last three games, that’s been trending in the opposite direction.
Against the Kings on Saturday, they went 2 for 3. Against the Capitals on Thursday, they were 2 for 4, and against the Oilers on Tuesday, they went 1 for 2.
The common denominator between those three games has been Cooley.
Cooley moved up to the first power play unit after Barrett Hayton got injured 17 seconds into the Oilers game. It was the second unit that scored that day, but Cooley and his new peers have scored all four since then — including two off of No. 92’s stick.
That begs the question: Why wasn’t Cooley always on the first power play unit?
The answer stems from last year, when Cooley did center the first group at times. He usually played fine, but the team always had better results when Hayton was in that spot.
This year began the same way, but Cooley is still developing. He might now be at the point where he’s ready to take on that role full-time.
Sergachev mentioned, too, that part of the sudden excellence has been from a shift in mindset.
“We had a shot mentality,” he said. “Everything started with the shot and then it opened up and our elite players made some elite plays, and it paid off. Simplicity is the key, I think.”
That said, the Mammoth were dominant Saturday with the man advantage even when they didn’t shoot. During their last power play — the only one that didn’t result in a goal — they zipped the puck around the offensive zone for what seemed like the full two minutes.
Tourigny and the rest of the team was just as impressed.
“The second unit said, ‘Wow, they’re fun to watch. They should stay (out) there,’” Tourigny laughed after the game.
Confidence seems to be just as big of a factor as the things Sergachev mentioned.
The playoff picture
Most of Saturday’s games went the ideal way for Utah:
- The Mammoth beat the Kings.
- The Canadiens beat the Predators.
- The Sabres beat the Kraken (though it went to a shootout).
That pushes the Mammoth’s lead to five points over the red-hot Predators and six points over the best non-playoff teams, the Kings and the Kraken.
It probably would have been advantageous to the Mammoth if the Ducks had beaten the Oilers, as most teams would rather face a team without much playoff experience than one that has been to two straight Stanley Cup Finals.
Tankathon puts Utah’s remaining schedule strength as the sixth-easiest in the league, and MoneyPuck gives the Mammoth a 94.2% chance to make the postseason.
The Mammoth now head into a four-day break, after which they hope to come back ready to go in Seattle on Thursday.
“We need to take it really seriously in terms of making sure we manage it right,” Tourigny said of the break, pointing out that the Kraken are close in the standings.
Gotta see it
If you don’t know the story of Henrik and Daniel Sedin, it’s well worth learning about. Identical twins drafted second- and third-overall to the same NHL team who both became first-ballot Hall of Famers.
They had a twin instinct that helped them find each other with impossible passes game after game. One of their highest-IQ plays — a pass off the end boards — was recreated by Sergachev and Cooley on Saturday.
In the NHL, icing is negated if an attacking player arrives at the top of the face-off circles before a defending player. In a case like this, where Cooley and Kings defenseman Cody Ceci got there at the same time, the call goes in the favor of the player in the best position to get the puck.
This is an unbelievable goal.