Longest game in franchise history puts Mammoth on the ropes

It’s no secret that experience counts in the Stanley Cup Playoffs — and the only way to gain experience is to go through tribulation.

In that sense, the Utah Mammoth’s last two losses are steps in the right direction.

Their young core is learning and growing, which is the goal at this stage in the team’s build. But in the here and now, these particular playoffs, the experience of the Vegas Golden Knights is showing through.

At a number of points throughout the series, the Mammoth have managed to score key goals to both tie games and take leads.

But the Golden Knights, a team filled with Stanley Cup champions and Olympic gold medalists — both on the ice and behind the bench — have learned to never fret. In two consecutive games, that experience has translated into third-period comebacks followed by overtime wins.

Wednesday’s match took double overtime, in fact, with Brett Howden scoring his second short-handed goal in as many games to give Vegas the 5-4 win and the 3-2 series lead.

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The teams head back to Salt Lake City for Game 6, which is set for Friday at the Delta Center. Mammoth associate Lawson Crouse expressed confidence in his group, along with a point of focus.

“You’ve got to be able to adapt. You’ve got to be able to change,” he said.

Head coach André Tourigny, who is also experiencing his first playoff series as an NHL head coach, said he saw “big improvement” in his team’s play from Game 4 to Game 5.

“We’re happy about the way we played,” he said. “I think we progressed in our game. I think we have some adjustments we made and (they) gave us a little bit more rhythm. There’s more things we need to keep cleaning up, but I think we played a really good game.”

Although there were a handful of plays the Mammoth would like to have back — as is the case in any game — Tourigny said there wasn’t one guy who he thought played particularly poorly.

“I think each game, we’re learning, we’re getting better, and we have to continue to do that,” said captain Clayton Keller.

“... These are the most fun game to be a part of. Down 3-2, we get to go home, play in front of our fans. If you’re not fired up for that, then you’ve got something wrong with you.”

Not-so-special teams

This season has been three separate stories for the Mammoth’s power play.

It struggled the bulk of the regular season, but found its way in the final months, helping the team reach the playoffs. Now, through five games, it has allowed more goals against than it has scored, and is operating at a success rate of 7%.

For context, the worst power play record in the NHL this regular season was more than twice as good as that: 15.7%.

“Power play’s got to be better,” Keller said. “We’ve got to find a way to score. They had one (power play goal), and we had some looks, but that’s something that we’ll look at, going into Game 6.”

As bad as the power play’s record is, the Mammoth are moving the puck well with the man advantage. But the Golden Knights have found success by taking away two threats, rather than five. Let me explain.

Of the Mammoth’s 46 power play goals this regular season, 20 came from Nick Schmaltz and Dylan Guenther. Rather than scrambling to cover all five guys at all times, the Golden Knights simply make sure to always have an eye on Schmaltz in the slot and Guenther on the left wing.

If they can prevent those two guys from doing what they respectively do best, their odds at killing penalties increase drastically.

The Mammoth have two ways to go about changing that. Either they can find a way to free those guys up, or they can plan for Keller, Logan Cooley and Mikhail Sergachev to shoot more, rather than passing.