Repetitive Issues Bite the Mammoth Again in Loss to Flyers

It feels like the Utah Mammoth have had some bad games more frequently than not recently. A 6-1 loss to the Boston Bruins, a 6-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers, and now, on Sunday, a 6-3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. This one might be the worst game out of the three in which the Mammoth have given up six goals because it was to a team that occupies the bottom of the Metropolitan Division and had lost three straight heading into this game.

Having one bad loss is fine. It happens. Having two is a bit sketchy. With three, there are obviously recurring issues and problems. The Mammoth are at three in a span of the month. What’s even worse is that this wasn’t Game 2 of a back-to-back. It wasn’t even the first game of this East Coast road trip. The Mammoth had two days without a game after their previous one against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

As always with these big losses, Karel Vejmelka was catching a lot of flak on social media. Blaming the goaltender after every loss isn’t the right move. You can’t blame every single loss this season on the Mammoth’s goaltenders. However, we are really getting to the point where questions and concerns about Vejmelka are becoming valid.

He has played 11 games this season. He currently has an .881 save percentage, the worst of his career. Vejmelka has given up two or more goals in all but two of his games. Those are numbers and stats that aren’t good at all.

Again, blaming the goaltender after losses that weren’t their fault isn’t the right move. Critiquing the goaltender just a few games into this season also isn’t the right move. However, we are now 15 games into the season, and Vejmelka has appeared in 11 of those games. We are approaching the point where something needs to change in his play, who starts in net, or an even bigger move of some sort.

There were some goals on Sunday that Vejmelka will certainly want back. However, let’s lessen the blame on the goaltender in this one because this is not all on him. The Mammoth’s defense was not good at all. Every single member of the blueline except Andrew Peeke was a minus player. It goes beyond the plus-minus stat line, too. Four of the six defensemen had at least one giveaway. 

There were a lot of errors made by the Mammoth across the lineup. Two of the Flyers' goals came off a bounce off a Mammoth player; another came off the entire team staying back and puck-watching. A lot of those bad goals came in the second period, which happened to be the team’s worst period on Sunday.

“In the second period, when things did not go our way, I didn't like the way we reacted,” head coach André Tourigny said. “I think we did not keep our composure, and we didn't defend with the same pace and the same drive that we had early in the game. I think that play is the result, and then from there, we were chasing.” 

One trio that has really struggled as of late has been the top line of Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, and Dylan Guenther. Each was a minus player on Sunday, despite Schmaltz and Keller both registering points.

Their offensive stats have also not been the best as of late. Both Keller and Schmaltz don’t have a single goal in the past five games. The Mammoth’s supposed best goal scorer, Guenther, has only one goal in his past eight games. That is not good at all. It might be time to reunite Guenther and Cooley back with each other, even add Anders Lee back to the trio with Kailer Yamamoto out with injury.

Last note about the current top line: all three forwards have only had one game in the past five where they’ve been on the plus side of the plus-minus stat. In every other game, Keller, Guenther, and Schmaltz have been minus players.

“We have a skilled team,” Mikhail Sergachev said. “We could’ve made a lot of plays tonight. We couldn't make plays for some reason. We weren't executing. We got to analyze the game and realize that we're good. We can make plays and fight forward.”

Some positives. Dmitri Simashev scored his third NHL goal off a brilliant pass from Vincent Trocheck. While the forward’s lob pass was the highlight, something you loved seeing from this goal was Simashev’s decision to charge to the net and crash it. That looks like a play right out of one of his 40 games in the American Hockey League last season. That is the confidence you want to see from the defenseman every single game.

The Mammoth also battled hard towards the end of the game to tie it up. A goal by Sergachev gave the Mammoth life on the power play, which led to a Cooley six-on-four goal to decrease the Flyers’ lead by two. With the team’s recent flair for the dramatics, no one would’ve probably been surprised if they had tied this one up. However, Cole Knuble scored an empty-net goal to end this game.

Imagine if that effort was shown in the first period or the second period. Maybe the Mammoth wouldn’t have found themselves down by four goals at the beginning of the third. It’s been a common theme as of late for the Mammoth to find themselves chasing the lead heading into the final frame of the game. That is a strategy that won’t win you games.

Not to mention, in the second period especially, there were stretches of time when the Flyers had the puck for minutes on end. That was a huge blow to the Mammoth, ruining any chance they had of generating momentum to try to get back into the game.

“When the game got away from us, you need to regroup, and you need to stay focused on the process,” Tourigny said. “We lost our composure, we lost our focus, and we did not press enough. We did not apply enough pace in our D-zone, then they have the puck a ton. When your opponent has the puck, it starts to create offense. Instead of defending with the same pride so we could recover the puck and go on the offense, we start to be casual defensively.”

It wasn’t a great game for the forwards, defensemen, and goaltender. Poor defense, especially with the puck watching and the amount of friendly-fire bounces, not-the-best goaltending, and failure to capitalize early are the biggest reasons why the Mammoth lost this one.

If those reasons sound familiar, it’s because those are reasons why the Mammoth have lost a lot of their games recently. The team’s flaws have become repetitive. All 23 players on the roster know what to do. The Mammoth’s record after a loss is flawless. How many times are you going to rely on a bounceback to help improve in the season, though?

What do the Mammoth need to do to be more consistent in doing the right things? Ultimately, it does start with that bounce-back game on Tuesday. From there, it’s about continuing those things moving forward.

“We know what went wrong,” Sergachev said. “It's the same thing again. We're down a couple of goals, we’re trying to cheat the game a little bit, and it bites us. It's the same thing that happened before. We can't change the way we're playing. We've got to push and simplify when we have the time and space to make a play.”

The Mammoth will head to Canada to play the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday. The Maple Leafs are 8-6-2 and are coming off a 4-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks. These two teams met earlier this season when the Mammoth won 5-4 at the Delta Center.