Utah Mammoth head coach André Tourigny has made a point of not revealing his game plan, but it can be inferred that getting out to a three-goal deficit was not part of it for Game 4.
But being down by three goals just means you’re three good shots away from tying it up.
Two of those “good shots” came 29 seconds apart in Monday’s Game 4 against the Vegas Golden Knights at the Delta Center, with Nick Schmaltz and Ian Cole scoring consecutively.
The Mammoth followed it up with another pair of goals in the first 5:10 of the third period to take the lead, against all odds.
That wouldn’t stand, though, as Vegas would tie it up and later win it in the final minute of overtime for a 5-4 final score. The series is now knotted at two games apiece as the teams head back to Sin City.
In 2024-25, Utah struggled to maintain leads. They’d get ahead and then sit back, trying to kill off the clock, rather than continuing to press. It almost inevitably ended in their lead being squandered.
This season, the Mammoth corrected that issue — and that was a key factor in their eventual playoff berth. But the old habit crept back in on Tuesday.
It stemmed from a penalty to JJ Peterka. Utah successfully killed off the entire two minutes, but they never shifted back into proactivity — they simply kept trying to kill off the clock.
“It’s not just (that) you’re sitting back. It’s (that) they’re tougher to defend,” he said. “They’re coming with numbers. So, I don’t think we sat back. I thought we kept competing, having pace, going at them.
“... It’s not like they dominated us for five minutes and, whoop, we cracked. I think it was back and forth at that moment.”
While the first part of that is true, the second part is inaccurate. In fact, the time between Utah’s most recent in-zone setup and Vegas’ game-tying goal was precisely five minutes (14:35 to 9:35, for those who care to double-check).
To a lesser degree, the Mammoth encountered a similar situation in Game 3. They got out to a 4-0 lead, but gave up two in the latter half of the third period. They were fortunate to have a big enough buffer to survive, but it’s not a reliable way to win games.
Mikhail Sergachev, whose trophy case includes two Stanley Cup rings, broke it down.
“We had some times when we could have made plays, and we just opted for, like, a punt and chipped it out,” he said. “We played a little too simple. So, we’ve just got to be more on it and maybe talk to the puck carrier and help them out.”
That’s a habit the Mammoth need to fix if they’re to go anywhere from here.
Momentarily, the Mammoth had Dallas Stars forward Matt Duchene to thank for the play that kept them alive in overtime.
Fans might remember when, as a member of the Colorado Avalanche in 2013, Duchene scored a goal after being offside by at least a foot. The league didn’t have a review process for offside goals at that time, so it stood, helping the Avalanche to a 6-5 win.
That was a major factor in the NHL’s decision to institute the coach’s challenge in 2015.
In overtime, all goals are automatically reviewed by the league, which led to the conclusion that Pavel Dorofeyev’s would-be game-winner would not count due to an offside on the zone entry.
While Golden Knights head coach John Tortorella had to be called back to the bench from the coaches’ room, Tourigny had no doubt that the call would be reversed.