4.1 seconds. Just 4.1 seconds were left on the clock as the Utah Mammoth held a 2–1 lead.
The defensive pressure Utah was putting out was high, as it was for most of the game. Almost every time the Ducks wanted a chance at a shot on net, it took a puck battle and evasive maneuvers to get one off — and even that wasn’t a guarantee with all the blocked shots Utah was forcing.
And despite Anaheim’s defense forcing Utah into long stretches without even getting a shot across the game, Utah had gotten key and timely plays from its offense. Despite the Ducks best efforts, Utah Mammoth was outlasting the Ducks at its own aggressive game.
And it looked like Utah was on the brink of closing in on a hard-fought win. All it had left to do was keep the puck out of the net for just five more seconds. But a lot can change in mere milliseconds. In fact, a lot did for Anaheim in this game.
Suddenly, the worst possible scenario had come true for Utah.
What seemed like just another standard battle along the boards turned into a golden opportunity at the exact moment the Ducks needed it. Even worse, it tied the game 2–2 with so little time left that Utah didn’t have enough of it to mount any kind of response.
Though only Anaheim’s Cutter Gauthier, Chris Kreider and Troy Terry were credited with points on the goal, the play couldn’t have happened without either Beckett Sennecke or Leo Carlsson, as both deserve an unofficial assist for their contributions.
Carlsson and Sennecke were instrumental in keeping the puck in the offensive zone. Without either of them helping Gauthier keep the puck away from Clayton Keller, Utah likely would have been able to send it down the ice and essentially end the game as the final seconds ticked away.
But Keller could never corral the puck long enough to clear it out of Utah’s defensive zone. Instead, it kept bouncing all over the place, ricocheting from stick to board before finally being sent out and controlled by Gauthier — a dangerous position for any opposing team.
It wasn’t that Utah was being careless defensively, either. With the puck along the boards, the smart play was usually to battle aggressively for control and run out the remaining clock. But once Sennecke gained control and quickly passed it out, Utah suddenly found itself in a bad spot, with three players out of the play and no chance to recover.
Despite that, Gauthier still wasn’t able to immediately capitalize on the sudden dysfunction, even when he got a clear shot at the blue paint with Kreider deflecting the puck toward the net as he battled for position. The shot only managed to hit the right post, and Utah still had a chance to clear it.
Not only did the puck stay out, but it deflected right to Karel Vejmelka's backside. And with Mikhail Sergachev still tied up with Kreider, Vejmelka had one last chance to secure the win for Utah. All he had to do was cover the puck, and the Mammoth would have been able to seal it.
And Vejmelka almost did, despite only catching a glimpse of the puck as it slid behind him. But the last-second effort was too late. The puck never got fully covered by his glove and rolled just far enough to the uncovered Troy Terry.
It certainly wasn’t a pretty goal, but it showed plenty of perseverance and grit from the Ducks. Though Utah had looked like it was finally pushing past them, Anaheim kept fighting down to the very last second and somehow managed to score.
Without that broken play, the Ducks never would have gone to overtime — nor would Olen Zellweger have scored the much prettier game-winning goal for Anaheim.
After playing so hard — fighting Anaheim for every inch of space and hustling to hack at every puck — having the Ducks score in the final seconds to force overtime was brutal for the Mammoth.
Utah had played a strong game, even getting one-timer goals from Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley, but it still wasn’t enough to stop Anaheim in overtime.
To make matters worse, Utah had also lost its previous game in overtime, though that one was dramatic for different reasons.
Utah may be playing more competitively and starting to resemble the team it was at the start of the season, going 1-0-2 in its last three games, but it’s been more than three weeks since the Mammoth recorded a win over a team other than the Buffalo Sabres.
Even if the team appears to be trending in the right direction, the Mammoth still needs to find a way to get some wins soon.