With their first Stanley Cup playoff victory in franchise history under their belts, the Utah Mammoth head home looking to take advantage of their energized fan base when they host Game 3 of their best-of-seven series against the Vegas Golden Knights in Salt Lake City on Friday night.
Logan Cooley scored the go-ahead goal at 14:00 of the third period as the visitors triumphed 3-2 in Game 2 to tie their Western Conference quarterfinal series 1-1.
“It was just business as usual,” said Utah coach Andre Tourigny of the mood in the room postgame. “We’re happy, obviously. We achieved what we wanted.
“It was a little bit like when we clinched the playoff spot. Guys were like, ‘Ok, good. We did what we worked to do.'”
Dylan Guenther scored a goal and added a helper, while MacKenzie Weegar added the other tally for the Mammoth. Kailer Yamamoto chipped in two assists, and Karel Vejmelka made 19 saves for his first career playoff win.
“There was a lot of pride, guys were happy about the game, but at the same time they were even-keeled,” Tourigny added. “That’s important because if you get carried away one way or another… that can have a long-term effect.”
With his goal, Cooley (21 years, 352 days) became the youngest United States-born player in NHL history to score in each of his first two career playoff games, a record previously held by Mammoth captain Clayton Keller (22 years, six days) when the franchise played in Arizona.
Mark Stone and Ivan Barbashev responded for Vegas, the top seed from the Pacific Division. Jack Eichel added two assists, and Carter Hart stopped 26 shots in the loss.
Mitch Marner contributed an assist in the loss, becoming the sixth player in team history to record a point in each of his first two playoff games with the Golden Knights.
With two days off between Games 2 and 3, Golden Knights head coach John Tortorella gave his team a day off on Wednesday in preparation for Friday.
“We had some good minutes, some bad minutes — just always trying to get better,” Tortorella said of Game 2. “When you play a series, there’s ebbs and flows. You feel good about things at certain times, and other things you need to work on.
“It’s our team concept, trying to be more consistent with our team concept.”
With Tuesday’s loss, Vegas dropped to 6-6 all-time in Game 2s. The Golden Knights have an 8-3 series record after taking a 1-0 lead.
“We have some things we need to improve on after Game 2, and that’s what we’ll work on as coaches and meet with the team (on Thursday) about it,” said Tortorella.
When a best-of-seven series is tied 1-1, the winner of Game 3 holds an all-time series record of 245-124 (.664). Teams winning Game 3 in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs went on to win five of six series.
The Golden Knights and Mammoth split a pair of regular-season meetings in Salt Lake City. Vegas won 4-1 on Nov. 20 while Utah picked up a 5-1 victory four days later.
–Field Level Media
