Utah Mammoth season comes to an end after 5-1 loss to Golden Knights

SALT LAKE CITY — A season full of new heights and promise has come to an end for the Utah Mammoth after a 5-1 loss at home to the Vegas Golden Knights.

Vegas closed out the series Friday night and avoided a Game 7 showdown thanks to Mitch Marner's biggest game of the series. The winger finished with two goals and an assist in the series win.

Overall, it was an anti-climactic game that took a turn from hopeful to worse, especially when things went south midway through the third period. After cutting the deficit to one goal, the Golden Knights rattled off three goals to closeout the game and series.

Utah looked unprepared and disjointed for the majority of the first two periods, failing to capitalize, once again, on opportunities in the Vegas zone and on the power play.

Brett Howden scored his fourth goal in the last three games in the opening frame on a costly turnover from defenseman Mikhail Sergachev. Howden recorded just 12 goals for the duration of the regular season but his game picked up in the playoffs.

The Mammoth had a strong push in the second period but couldn't get anything past goalie Carter Hart.

After a long shift in Utah's zone, the Golden Knights made the Mammoth pay off a goal from Marner to give the Knights a 2-0 lead. Utah looked tired near the end of the shift, and without a chance to clear the puck and get fresh guys on the ice, Marner was able to take advantage.

A failure to generate shots on goal on power plays and taking a while to set up in the offensive zone hurt the Mammoth's ability to take advantage of any pressure put on the Golden Knights. Combine that with more careless turnovers and a performance that lacked energy for much of the game, and it was no surprise in the result.

Kailer Yamamoto gave the fans at the Delta Center some life after he was finally able to get Utah on the board on a snap shot that wasn't fully controlled by Hart to make its way into the net.

In that moment, it looked as though the Mammoth could flip the momentum, especially after getting back onto the attack on the following faceoff. The excitement was short lived, though, as Colton Sissons quieted the home crowd with a goal just two minutes later.

One of the bigger advantages Vegas had in the series was the play of its bottom lines as compared to Utah's. The Golden Knights' fourth line scored six goals in the series, whereas the Mammoth's bottom line only had one. That contributed to a 14-3 difference in points from the Golden Knights' bottom six and Utah's.

Vegas then extended the lead with Marner's second goal before putting the final nail in the coffin with an empty-netter from Cole Smith with still over three minutes to play.

The Mammoth continued to fight until the end but there was no hope for a miraculous comeback. The Golden Knights displayed its wealth of experience throughout each game, propelling them to yet another playoff series win in its short history.

"They know how to win," Sergachev said. "Even though sometimes we were outplaying them, they were still in the game, and they were never out of it because of their experience."

Vegas head coach John Tortorella made sure to give credit to Utah after the conclusion of the game, saying: "The thing I love about the team is that they just kept their head down through the momentum swings on a really good hockey team that we were playing against.

"A very well-coached hockey team and (we) just found our way."

In the organization's first playoff series, the Mammoth showed it could play with one of the most experienced and veteran-laden teams in the NHL, and that they belong on the stage. The issue was the Mammoth had chances to take a bigger lead in the series and to win it.

"Your failure makes you stronger," Utah head coach Andre Tourigny said. "You learn from it and it makes you better, but in order to make sure that happens it has to hurt. I want that to hurt and I want to learn from it."

Many will point to the back-to-back overtime losses, and the fact Utah held a lead in the third period for all but one game this series. Holding onto a one-goal lead in the final minute of Game 5 could have changed the outcome.

"We could have closed that one out, you know, but that's shoulda, woulda, coulda," Lawson Crouse said. "It's in the past."

Tourigny said his team showed they belonged in the playoffs with how they performed throughout the six games, and that holding onto the lead late was the difference.

"I have no shame about how we played and how we stand up against those guys," Tourigny said. "Our guys did a really good job. We all know we had the lead five times out of six in the third period. That is what the difference is in the series, there is no doubt about it. That's something we need to be much better at."

The future is bright, the team's core is in place, and with many top prospects in the system, the Mammoth will seemingly be a household name for the years to come.

"We are only gonna get better," Clayton Keller said. "This sucks, but we'll learn from it. We'll break it down, and the next time we're in this situation, next year, we'll get over the hump."

"We were a younger team," Sergachev added. "It took us a lot to get here, and we saw what it takes to win a series. They showed us, they played well. They're a great team. You saw in the tight moments, they prevailed and they scored at the right moment."

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