LAS VEGAS — Emotions flared in Las Vegas Sunday night as the Utah Mammoth took on the Vegas Golden Knights in their first-ever playoff game.

Those emotions were still raw Monday afternoon as head coach André Tourigny and a pair of players met with the media at the team’s hotel.

Playoff hockey is, by nature, physical. That’s the type of game the Golden Knights have played since their inception, and Sunday’s game was no exception.

But while Vegas out-hit Utah 51-31, including some absolute truckings, Tourigny didn’t see that as a weakness for his team.

The Golden Knights have come out physical to start the #StanleyCup Playoffs 😳 pic.twitter.com/Ra3KGtZfvf

“I didn’t think it had any impact in the game,” he said. “... I didn’t see them bully us. I didn’t see that at all.”

Alexander Kerfoot, now a veteran of 49 Stanley Cup Playoff games, explained it with more detail.

“There’s going to be physicality in the playoffs. I liked the way that we responded at times. That’s kind of part of their game — they’re going to bring that — and we would like to match that.”

Utah did give it back to Vegas throughout the night. Logan Cooley was in the battle all game long; Lawson Crouse delivered nine hits; Sean Durzi got fined $5,000 for head-butting Rasmus Andersson.

But in terms of puck battles — an area that sets up much of the rest of the game — the Mammoth left something to be desired.

Specifically, Vegas’ defensemen laid five times as many hits as Utah’s defensemen did. Translation: The Golden Knights made life harder on the Mammoth’s forwards than vice versa.

Alexander Kerfoot mentioned this afternoon that he and his wife, Marissa, have welcomed their second child into the world."They're all doing great. Mom and baby are doing well, so it's obviously an exciting time."There's precedent for new fathers to have big games afterwards…

While the Mammoth did beat Golden Knights goaltender Carter Hart twice on Sunday, two goals is rarely enough to win a hockey game. They need to find more ways to score.

Kerfoot mentioned three things his team needs to do to generate offense in Game 2:

Tourigny defended his top line of Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz and Lawson Crouse, which did not score on Sunday and was a combined -8 on the evening.

“That will happen,” he said. “It’s just — it’s (the) playoffs.”

“If you think I will come here in the playoffs and I will start to single out players on my team or the other team, you should have been there for the first 82 games, because I never did it. I won’t do it,” he said.