After an unlikely Game 3 victory, the Utah Mammoth will try to secure their third straight win over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights on Monday in Salt Lake City during Game 4 of their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series.
Vegas secured a 4-2 home win in Game 1, but the Mammoth erased the Knights’ home-ice advantage by winning Game 2. Utah then took command of the series with a 4-2 victory Friday in the first-ever NHL playoff game in Salt Lake City.
The Mammoth won Game 3 despite being outshot by a 32-12 margin. Utah became the eighth team since 1974 to win a playoff game with 12 or fewer shots, while the Golden Knights lost despite allowing the second-lowest shots total in any game (regular season or playoffs) in Vegas franchise history.
Sunday’s practice saw the Knights deploy some new line combinations and new power-play units. Vegas has gone 2-for-9 on the power play in the series and 5-for-6 on the penalty kill, though coach John Tortortella felt “we lost the special teams battle in the first three games.”
While the lineup may have some new looks in Game 4, Tortortella said neither his coaching staff or his veteran players have any panic.
“We’ve made some adjustments, as you do in (the) playoffs. Not crazy stuff, but when you get down in a series and you lose a couple in a row, it’s belief,” Tortortella said. “It’s believing in what we’re doing, belief in how we’re preparing. This is mental. This is where I feel very comfortable with this team. … We can draw as much stuff as we can on the board x’s and o’s-wise, this is belief. I think we have that in that room.”
Utah defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said his team also has a few new tricks in mind for Game 4.
“We expect a really good response from a really good opponent over there, so we’re going to need to be focused and prepared,” he said.
As efficient as the Mammoth were with their shots in Game 3, Weegar knows that level of production won’t normally win games.
“We’re definitely going to make some corrections for the next game, which will I think build a little bit more speed and we’ll get a little more offense going.”
Twelve different Mammoth players have at least one point in the series, and five players share the team lead with three points apiece. Weegar, Dylan Guenther, Lawson Crouse, and Logan Cooley each have two goals and an assist, and Kailer Yamamoto has three assists.
Playing in his first career playoff games, Karel Vejmelka has risen to the occasion with a 2.36 goals-against average and .916 save percentage in the series. The numbers are a step beyond Vejmelka’s solid 2.75 GAA and .897 save percentage in the regular season.
Mark Stone, Ivan Barbashev (each with two goals and one assist) and Jack Eichel (one goal, two assists) all have three points in the series, sharing the Vegas team lead.
Though Carter Hart allowed four goals on 12 shots in Game 3, he’ll be back in the Vegas net on Monday. Hart went 7-1-0 with a .932 save percentage over his last eight starts spanning the end of the regular season and first two postseason games.
