Mammoth Come up With 5-4 Win Despite Late Maple Leafs Comeback

It wasn’t the prettiest of wins for the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday, but they got the two points. Despite a late comeback from the Toronto Maple Leafs, the hometown team held on to win their second straight game and improve to 5-2-0.

It was all kicked off by Daniil But, who scored the opening goal of the game. It was the forward’s best goal in his young NHL career yet. He took the puck from a Maple Leafs defender and forced it up the ice, using Jack McBain as a reinforcement. But then used some nice moves to get around a defenseman and fired a shot at the net to score his second of the season.

That display of confidence was nowhere to be seen at the NHL level last season, but it was present. In the American Hockey League (AHL), But made plays like that all the time. It seems like that type of play has finally emerged with the Mammoth.

It wasn’t just the rookie who had a standout game. His whole line played pretty solid. McBain and Kevin Stenlund both registered assists against the Maple Leafs. While the penalty kill, which Stenlund is pretty involved in, wasn’t fantastic- letting their opponents score twice on five opportunities on the man advantage- the forward did manage to win 53% of his faceoffs. Something that was critical, especially towards the end of the game.

“That line was really good,” head coach André Tourigny said. “That was probably our best line. Stenny and Bainer were very good. He got on the body. They put puck deep. They made plays with the puck. They had scoring chances. They defended unbelievably. Really proud of their game.”

Someone else who had a good game was Vincent Trocheck. He scored the second goal of the game, and it was the Pittsburgh connection that got him his second of the season. He and Logan Cooley made some great passes to each other to set up the goal. Cooley’s last pass in particular was a nice one as he whipped the puck to Trocheck.

Even after six games with the Mammoth and Cooley, it still doesn’t feel real for Trocheck to be playing with one of his close buddies on the same team. Trocheck’s play on the second line with Dylan Guenther and Cooley has been solid, and the second goal alone shows that there is more chemistry to be tapped into going forward.

“It's actually awesome; it's just a blast,” Trocheck said. “I have so much fun; it doesn't seem real at times. Sometimes it just feels like we’re playing street hockey in the summer. He’s such a good kid, obviously such a phenomenal hockey player, so he makes things a little easier on me out there. It's a lot of fun just being able to talk shop, talk about our game with each other, now just at an NHL level.”

As mentioned, the penalty kill wasn’t great. Only killing three of the five Maple Leafs power plays isn’t fantastic. Their penalty kill now ranks 25th in the NHL, and while their 74% success rate is close to that of many of the teams ahead of them, it does show that the Mammoth have not been great while shorthanded. It’s something that needs to be fixed and addressed.

On top of that, the power play was not good at all on Tuesday. On four opportunities, the Mammoth scored zero goals on the man advantage. It’s been like a light switch for the power play. In one game, the Mammoth will be speeding around and scoring, and in the next, it will be stone cold and not do much.

It’s been the whole season so far for the Mammoth as well, not just in a pair of games. Consistency is something the team knows they have to achieve.

“That was a very inconsistent performance by us,” Mikhail Sergachev said. “We gave up some tough goals on the PK that we shouldn't have given up; we got to clean that up. Our power play, we just got to talk more, stay focused out there, and just do what makes us great. Shoot the puck, recover, and today I don't think we had a shot on goal, so we just got to do better.”

Speaking of Sergachev, he had a good game. He scored a massive goal off a rebound opportunity on a delayed penalty while the Mammoth were shorthanded. It wasn’t just the goal, though. Sergachev had multiple blocks in front of the net that ended up being important considering the outcome in the third period.

MacKenzie Weegar scored towards the end of the second period to put the Mammoth up 5-2. It seemed like the Mammoth were going to cruise to a big win, getting their second win in a row.

That’s not how it played out. The Mammoth surrendered goals to John Tavares and Gavin McKenna as they cut the lead to one. In the final nine minutes, the Mammoth were playing on their tiptoes, trying to get the win that looked like it was clearly in their grasp.

Things got even more chaotic in the third period when Guenther tripped up Auston Matthews while trying to attempt to pass the puck to Cooley for an empty-net goal. In the final minute, the Mammoth found themselves defending on a six-on-four. It’s where Karel Vejmelka made his biggest saves. He made multiple point-blank stops in the span of seconds, and the Mammoth squeaked out a 5-4 win.

It certainly wasn’t the prettiest win, but the important part is that the Mammoth got it. Ultimately, if the team wants to keep winning, this needs to be a learning experience. Just like the 6-1 loss to the Boston Bruins, this needs to be something that needs to be built on. The Mammoth need to get better from this narrow win, not repeat and do the same thing against a high-powered Edmonton Oilers team on Thursday.

“I don't want to sound negative because we won,” Tourigny said. “I'm really happy, and we found a way after a long road trip. If you look around the league, when teams are away for nine days like we were, their winning percentage is not really high…There are always things you need to be aware of and manage to get better. It's important for us; even if we have success, we need to manage it the right way and learn from what we need to do better, so that we can keep being successful. The number one thing that we can’t do is mismanage our success. That will lead to failure, so we don't want to do that.”

Looking at the positive side, the Mammoth took down a pretty good team in the Maple Leafs. They remain on top of the Central Division, and their offense continues to be one that is putting the rest of the league on notice. All four lines and the blueline continue to rack up points, and while the special teams still need some work, this is a pretty good Mammoth team heading into their seventh game of the season.

Especially considering the Mammoth were coming off a long East Coast road trip, getting this win against the Maple Leafs is massive for this group. It’s one they should be happy to get and a big learning experience going forward against some pretty tough teams.

“I thought we stayed even-keeled throughout the game,” Trocheck said. “Obviously, these games after coming back from a long road trip are tough, but I thought we came out hot, rode the waves, and stayed even-keeled.”

The Mammoth will travel to Northern Alberta to play the Oilers in a one-game road trip. The Oilers are 5-0-1 this season and are coming off a 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings. These two teams last met last season in April where the Mammoth won 6-5 in overtime.