Mammoth showing their youth with blown leads
When Michael Carcone scored on an odd-man rush with just over seven minutes left in the third period of Wednesday’s Game 5, he gave the Utah Mammoth a 4-3 lead in the game and a likely 3-2 advantage in their series against the Vegas Golden Knights. However, Vegas had other plans, as Pavel Dorofeyev scored his third goal of the game with under a minute left to force overtime, and then Brett Howden scored a short-handed goal early in the second overtime period to give the Golden Knights the victory and push the Mammoth to the brink of elimination.
Unfortunately for Utah, letting late-game leads slip away has been a theme for them this postseason. The Mammoth have held a third-period lead in each of the five games of this series thus far, yet they’ve found a way to lose three of them and now face a win-or-go-home Game 6 on Friday. Vegas’ experience and savvy have to be credited, but this young Utah team is learning the hard way about finishing games in the postseason.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed how the Mammoth’s inexperience has hurt them when protecting leads.
Tyler Yaremchuk: If you’re Utah, you have led in five straight third periods, and not only are you down in the series, you give up a short-handed game winner in double overtime. As much as Vegas has been persistent, and they have that veteran, never-say-die attitude, I look at the flip side and there’s been a few times Utah has shown their youth in a negative way.
Carter Hutton: Yeah, for sure. To highlight what I talked about with the Habs at 6-on-5, they keep the puck to half of the rink, they do not give up the center or the top because that’s such a big advantage. With Utah and the turnover in double overtime, I think there’s a little confusion between Lawson Crouse and (Alexander) Kerfoot down low on the powerplay. They’re both forwards and they just kind of get outworked, there’s a little bit of delay from Kerfoot. And again, there needs to be support here. If you’re the top guy in the center of the ice, I think it’s (JJ) Peterka, you need to get over and challenge that play. I know there’s a high d-man here, it’s just a tricky play for the Utah Mammoth when you have numbers, you are at the advantage.
But this also happens because of the 6-on-5 goal. I think they’re just giving up too many options for (Karel) Vejmelka, and I think it’s a youth thing. I think the calmness during the madness is being able to say “We’re going to give up something, we’re outnumbered 6-on-5, but what are we giving up?” I think that’s where it really comes into play.
You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Thursday’s episode here…