Any team could have lost on the road to a team as good as the Montreal Canadiens. After all, this team is one of the hottest and most exciting in the league right now, despite being one of the youngest. Cole Caufield is leading the NHL in goals, now totaling 12. Ivan Demidov is having an impressive rookie campaign, and the whole team is speeding past opponents and scoring at will. The Canadiens are playing some great hockey right now. But when the Utah Mammoth came into Montreal, a 6-2 loss was still an unexpected outcome. Utah is also a young, exciting team to start the season, even opening the year 8-2. But with losses in four of the last five games, Utah has not looked like the team that set a franchise-record seven-game winning streak. For one, its top six hasn’t been dominating games like it was during that winning stretch. When the Mammoth were winning, players such as Logan Cooley and JJ Peterka were racing past teams. The speed they brought game in and game out was genuinely causing opponents problems. But across its most recent losing stretch — and especially in its game against Montreal — Utah hasn’t been able to control games with its speed like before. And aside from its 6-3 loss to Edmonton, Utah’s second line of Cooley, Peterka and Dylan Guenther has been contained. Even Utah’s top line of Nick Schmaltz, Clayton Keller and Barrett Hayton hasn’t been able to consistently score as of late. A big reason for that lack of production is the Mammoth’s power play. Over its last five games, Utah hasn’t converted a single power play, going 0-for-12. So not only is Utah’s speed being contained, but its top players also can’t get anything going on the power play. A big reason Schmaltz got on a hot stretch earlier was because of his impact there — he currently leads the team with six power-play points. Instead of generating both offense and momentum on power plays, as well as turning opponent turnovers into speedy transition goals, the Mammoth is relying heavily on its third and fourth lines to create offense. And you have to hand it to players such as Lawson Crouse and Kailer Yamamoto — the goal scorers in Utah’s loss to Montreal — for creating offense and momentum for this team. The energy they’re playing with is creating scoring opportunities and giving Utah leads. But when Utah’s offense isn’t able to control the game with its top players, its defense suffers as well. The Mammoth have given up 22 goals across their last five games. Without complementary offensive play, Utah has been putting even more strain on its defense to make stops, and it’s leading to teams piling up goals. It certainly hasn’t been the Mammoth’s brand of hockey as of late. And with a game against the Senators rapidly approaching Sunday, Nov. 9, Utah doesn’t have much time to change its game plan. But the difference this season is that Utah has shown how well this team can play. Though the Mammoth have struggled to deal with a bigger target on their backs than they had to start the season, this team was always going to need to figure out how to become consistent. To become an elite team in the NHL, the Utah Mammoth will need to figure out how to respond to this recent losing stretch. Even the best teams sometimes struggle to win. But for now, Utah needs to find a way to get its best players better looks at the net.
