Tired and Shorthanded Mammoth Drop Final Game of Road Trip to Senators

The Utah Mammoth’s trip to Pennsylvania and Eastern Canada is over, and once again, they could’ve easily won the final game. After a crushing overtime defeat on Thursday to the Montreal Canadiens in overtime, it was a similar tale on Saturday against the Ottawa Senators, except the Mammoth couldn’t even squeeze out the extra point.

With just a little over two minutes remaining, Nick Cousins tipped in Thomas Chabot’s shot to score the game-winning goal for the Senators. Shane Pinto put in an empty-net goal to inflate the score to 4-2. However, despite what the score tells you, it wasn’t a bad game for the Mammoth.

The Mammoth came out swinging. In the first period, they outshot the Senators 14-7. They outshot them again in the third period, 11-5.

However, sometimes all it takes to decide a game is one error. Sometimes, the best team doesn’t win. That’s what happened to the Mammoth. Michael Amadio’s goal that gave the Senators the lead early in the third period came off a bad defensive play that ended up being a three-on-one goal.

“When our back end is banged up, you cannot give up the odd-man rush we did,” André Tourigny said. “That was totally in our control. It's not like we fumbled a puck or something like that. It's a bad read, and it's a bad decision. Then we give up an odd-man rush. You put it back. We crawl back, and we miss an assignment on the faceoff. So those are the things. We're better than that.”

The aforementioned goal given up right after the faceoff was Cousins’ game-winning goal. If the Mammoth didn’t give up that three-on-one goal, this game might’ve gone into overtime, and they would’ve gotten a point. It’s a game that has consequences after even one small error, and the Mammoth saw that firsthand tonight.

Tourigny does have a point. The Mammoth came into this game shorthanded. Not only are they near the end of a long road trip, but they’re also banged up. It was announced right before the game that Nate Schmidt wouldn’t play due to an upper-body injury and is now listed as day-to-day. 

Schmidt joins John Marino and Kailer Yamamoto in the group of injured Mammoth players over the past couple of weeks. They are now relying on Artem Duda in his first NHL season and Nick DeSimone as their bottom pair on the blueline. While Duda is a promising prospect and DeSimone is a solid seventh defenseman who can fill in when needed, they are currently not full-time NHLers on a competitive team looking to go far in the playoffs.

Both Duda and DeSimone played decently, and so did Liam O’Brien, who has also become an everyday NHLer with Yamamoto banged up. While ideally, you’re not dressing those players every day, you can’t argue with the fact that the three of them have risen to the occasion during this trip.

“We have a lot of depth, a lot of great players that can play anywhere in the lineup and contribute,” Clayton Keller said. “I think guys have had lots of chances. They've done a great job. It's only going to get better. We have a great group, and everyone trusts one another. Everyone's excited to play with one another. We have a great team, lots of confidence.”

There’s been a lot of criticism around Karel Vejmelka’s play, and rightfully so. He hasn’t been great this season. It seemed like it was going to be another game to add to that collection of bad games for him as well. Fabian Zetterlund’s goal to open up the game wasn’t a great one to give up.

However, it turned out to be a pretty solid game for Vejmelka. He made some pretty good saves, and you can’t blame him for the three-on-one goal or the game-winning goal. You’d like to see his save percentage above .850, but when you look at the film, the only play you can really nitpick is Zetterlund’s goal.

Also on the positive side, Keller’s point streak extended to five games with his goal, which he got by tapping in his own rebound. He also assisted on Barrett Hayton’s goal, a shot from the captain that Hayton ended up deflecting into the back of the net.

This is a hard game to really dwell on. You can’t say the Mammoth had a bad game. They kept up with the Senators, a really solid team, despite being shorthanded and being at the tail end of a long road trip. There were some key errors that ended up costing them the game, but it’s not like they allowed odd-man rushes repeatedly throughout the game.

The Mammoth should be frustrated that they lost. It’s two points they didn’t get, which allowed the Dallas Stars and the Nashville Predators to pass them in the standings. Yet, this is not the game to over-critique.

“We played well,” Tourigny said. “Ottawa is a good team, and we pushed through. We were two minutes and a half away from having at least one point, so we're not happy. We're frustrated, but we need to make sure we're not overreacting here.”

The Mammoth will get a much-needed three days off before a very tough first-round rematch against the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday. There are things to build on here. Taking those things, getting rest, and finding a way to be better is the goal, and the Mammoth do have the ability to do that. They haven’t lost consecutive games before Saturday. They know how to bounce back.

“We just need to build on tonight,” Keller said. “After every game, we always think we can be better, but I think we did a lot of good things. It sucks to lose, but you know you can always learn from it and take it into the next game. It's such a hard league, and you get humbled very quickly. You always gotta strive to get better.”

The Mammoth will have the next three days off before traveling to Las Vegas to play the Golden Knights. The Golden Knights are 11-5-2 and are coming off a 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings. They’ll play the Buffalo Sabres on Sunday before heading back home for Wednesday’s game.