Coach Andre Tourigny suggested things are starting to snowball for the Utah Mammoth — in a positive way.
The Mammoth improved to 4-0-1 on their season-long, seven-game homestand with a 2-1 victory against the Dallas Stars, who are second in the NHL’s overall standings. They will try to extend that streak when they play host to the Seattle Kraken on Saturday in Salt Lake City.
The Mammoth have won two in a row, including a 6-1 victory against Toronto on Tuesday that snapped the Maple Leafs’ 10-game point streak.
“One lap doesn’t make a big snowball. It’s when you play another good game and another good game,” Tourigny said. “The result doesn’t come right away, but at some point when you put a lot of good action, one behind the other one, lot of good games, at some point you become more confident.”
Nick Schmaltz and John Marino each had a goal and an assist Thursday against Dallas, while goaltender Karel Vejmelka made 26 saves for his NHL-leading 22nd victory of the season as the Mammoth extended their overall point streak to six games (5-0-1).
“We talked about stringing together wins, especially on home ice, and I thought those last few games on home ice were some of our best of the year,” said Schmaltz, who broke a scoreless deadlock with seven seconds left in the second period. “I think just the way we competed, no matter what the score was … if they get one, whatever, we come back and respond and played hard right until the end, so it was a huge win.”
The Stars tied it early in the third before Marino scored what proved to be the winner at 4:03, as his shot from the point deflected off Dallas’ Jake Oettinger and high into the air, eventually falling behind the goalie and trickling into the net.
“I think everyone didn’t panic too much,” Marino said. “Whether the guys were out there, tired, everyone on the bench, no one was screaming, shouting. Everyone was pretty comfortable with the situation. So we learn from that and go forward.”
Dylan Guenther, who played part of his junior career in Seattle, leads the Mammoth with 23 goals and Clayton Keller has a team-high 44 points, one better than Schmaltz.
The Kraken will be finishing a five-game trip where they are 1-2-1 after games against Carolina, the New York Rangers, New Jersey and Boston.
Captain Jordan Eberle leads Seattle in both goals (16) and points (30).
The Kraken suffered a 4-2 loss Thursday at Boston on a night the Bruins retired Zdeno Chara’s number.
Boston scored twice in the opening 3:45, causing Kraken coach Lane Lambert to call a timeout.
“We’re down 2-0 and something has to happen,” said forward Eeli Tolvanen, who scored one of Seattle’s goals. “We had a pretty good push-back, but a couple of early mistakes cost us. The team responded pretty well (after the timeout). We started skating, moving and creating offense, too.”
The Kraken lost back-to-back nights after a 3-2 overtime defeat on Wednesday at the Devils.
“(Thursday) wasn’t a good result,” said Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour, who returned after missing 14 games with an upper-body injury. “It was tough to give up two early on, but for the most part, I thought we were pretty solid. We had chances to at least get a point, but unfortunately, we didn’t.”
–Field Level Media
