^{Logan Cooley and Nick Schmaltz each get a pair as Utah extends its historic win streak}

In St, Louis, Logan Cooley had an assist, and a hat trick, on his 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th shifts. There wasn’t any way he could improve on that, we thought. However, the 21 year old said “Hold my recently legally allowed beer” and he almost proved us all wrong.

In the first 56 seconds, on his first shift, Cooley scored by batting a puck out of the air right in front of Filip Gustavsson. No one in the arena except Cooley and the referee knew the puck was in. Gustavsson looked to have grabbed the fluttering puck, but Cooley, with the no-look backhanded swat gave Utah the lead before anyone else had seen the ice.

A quick counter attack by the Wild forced the Mammoth to make some good defensive plays, and Karel Vejmenka was forced to make a pair of tough stops. The Wild’s aggressive response took a toll, however, as a hard slash by Yakov Trenin put the Mammoth on the man advantage.

Utah’s power play has picked up significantly in the past few games, as the 12% power play has creeped up all the way to almost 20% coming into the game. The unit, 5 for the last 21 attempts, did not disappoint, as Logan Cooley got his second goal of the game – on his second shift no less. Cooley crashed the net, took a couple of whacks at a Gustavsson rebound, and the puck rolled over Gustavsson’s pad into the net. Originally called no goal, review clearly showed the puck crossed the line for his second tally in just 2 and a half minutes.

Cooley was on hatty watch in 6 minutes against St. Louis; tonight Cooley had nearly 56 and a half minutes to leave us watching and waiting to see if he’d collect his 6th goal in 2 games.

The speed and tenacious forecheck in the first period forced a number of turnovers in the defensive end, and Minnesota was reeling. Off another rush, Utah forced a face off in the offensive zone. A faceoff win led to a blast from the point by Nate Schmidt. On the way, the puck was slightly redirected by Nick Schmaltz, fooling an already heavily tested Gustavsson, beating him top-shelf glove side for a 3-0 lead.

With the score already 3-0, Lawson Crouse almost gave them their second 4-0 first period lead in two games, but he fanned on a pass from Jack McBain, who held the puck in the line from a sneaky steal.

Brandon Tanev almost got his first tally as a Mammoth, as he cut off a pass right in front of Gustavsson, but the netminder sealed the side of the cage, and Tanev’s individual effort was unfortunately unrewarded.

The Wild got on the board on a tic-tac-toe goal off an odd man rush. Caught slightly in the offensive zone on yet another push, the Wild jumped on the advantage, as Kirill Kaprizov crossed the line, dropped to Zeev Buium, to Marcus Johansson who ripped it from the dot past a diving Karel Vejmelka to put the Wild on the board.

With 2 minutes to go, Keller tried to restore the 3 goal lead, with a shot from the top of the dots on a wide open look, but was stopped by Gustavsson. Late pressure by Schmaltz didn’t result in an opportunity, and the Mammoth’s last shot from the blue line was stopped as time expired in the period.

Utah entered the tunnel up 3-1, outshooting the Wild 15-6 in the period.

The second period started out with a number of Utah chances, as Utah outshot the Wild early 6 – 1. Most of the shots for both sides were low danger, and up until the 10 minute mark, both teams seemed content to play fairly conservatively. At the halfway mark, the Wild had a total of 10 shots and even fewer chances – but this would quickly change as the teams traded grade a chances and rush opportunities. This led to a pair of penalties, opening up the ice even more with a 4 on 4. Vejmelka made a stunning save on a prime chance, however Cole took a hooking penalty on the play. This put Utah down a man for the first time for the game.

The Wild are lethal on the power play. Coming in to tonight’s contest, the Wild have scored almost half their team goals on special teams, converting over 30% with their power play unit. Initially, Utah did a great job of containing them. Breaking up passes and blocking shots and lanes for the majority of the advantage, Vejmelka was tested on just one shot through the first 1:40 However, the last big rush with less than 20 seconds to go saw a no-look pass from Vincent Hinostrozato to a wide open Johansson at the far dot. Vejmelka threw himself across the crease, and made some contact with the puck, but not enough, as the Wild’s power play did its job yet again, putting them within one on Johansson’s second of the night.

An energized Wild pushed hard the remainder of the period; 6 attempted shots and a number of big hits from the Wild had Utah a bit on its heels to end the period.

Utah’s had poor second period showings so far this year; this period was fairly good by Utah standards. Shot suppression remained, keeping Minnesota to less than 10 shots for the period.

The third started out with a tremendous push by the Wild; 20 seconds in, Marco Rossi had an uncontested shot from the slot, which Veggie was able to position for. McBain took a very bad tripping penalty on an ensuing forecheck, putting a Wild PP unit that had scored on its first chance back on the ice.

The power play unit wasted no time, as Kaprizov fired from the point, which Vejmelka made a fantastic stop on, only to allow a rebound directly in front for Vladimir Tarasenko – who Veggie was also able to somehow stop. Marino and Sergachev made some great deflections to prevent extremely dangerous chances, but a one-timer from the dot by Kaprizov was again stopped by Vejmelka, who gloved and then covered the rebound. Mercifully, the Mammoth survived the penalty kill, even after 5 or 6 shots given up during those tense 2 minutes. (For comparison, Utah didn’t allow more than 5 shots in multiple periods this year, most recently against St, Louis, allowing just 3 in the first period).

The first 5 minutes were survival mode for the Mammoth, and they barely touched beyond the red line as they constantly dumped the puck deep in the Minnesota zone. Then, after the forecheck got established and finally put pressure on the Wild in their defensive zone, a steal by Cooley and falling, backhanded, no look pass ended up on Dylan Guenther’s stick. His turn around snap shot fooled Gustavsson, who had faced only a pair of shots in a 14 minute span, but the puck stuck under him and the score remained Utah by one.

Utah’s 4th line came out for the faceoff, and proceeded to put significant pressure on the Minnesota defense for half the shift, allowing a significant momentum change where Utah saw a wraparound chance by O’Brien, Tanev missed a rebound, and Ian Cole and Stenlund all had chances turned aside. The Wild turned up the heat as well, pushing back immediately and forcing Utah to take long shifts and take a pair of icings. A fantastic draw off by McBain helped alleviate pressure momentarily, as right after the tired defensemen changed, Barrett Hayton took a high sticking penalty. The Wild had yet another golden opportunity, with their top 5 ranked power play unit poised to tie the game.

Critically, Stenlund won a pair of faceoffs, helping kill quite a bit of time from the penalty. However, the ever dangerous Wild special teams almost capitalized, as the puck was played from behind the net to a wide, open Tarasenko. Tarasenko was less than 2 feet away from Veggie when he tried to go far side, but Veggie was able to stop, and then cover, the shot. Boldy and Kaprizov had a pair of connections; the first shot was stopped by Vejmelka, and the identical opportunity moments later was sent too high. Utah, again, miraculously survived a Wild onslaught, and the penalty ended with no damage done.

Out of the box, Hayton took a Wild player in the far corner, ended up winning the puck, and forced an opportunity on Gustavsson that missed. However, this allowed Schmaltz and Keller to enter the zone, allowing Utah some offensive zone pressure for what felt like the first time in the period. Cooley and Peterka almost connected on their push off the rush, which seemed to open the floodgate for chances. Veggie had to turn aside a Wild shot from the slot, Utah failed to convert on a 3 on 2, and Utah finally converted and restored the two goal lead on a broken play. A pass by Sergachev was missed by Cooley, but the puck rebounded into the middle of the ice. Peterka, coming on the ice from a change, flew into the middle of the slot, and ripped the puck far-side to give Utah some breathing room.

The Wild counterattacked with a vengeance, trying to get back within one, but a misplayed puck by the Wild allowed a Nick Schmaltz breakaway. Gustavsson had no chance on Schmaltz’ fake shot to fake backhand to floater over the glove, giving Utah the 3 goal lead again.

Minnesota ramped up their desperation play, as they needed three to tie. Utah was able to keep them from mounting a lot of pressure, as the Mammoth were able to push some offensive time – and shots – not backing down from their lead. However, during yet another Ian Cole third period penalty, Minnesota pulled Gustavsson for a 6 on 4 attack. Their potent power play bombarded the Mammoth, looking for a spark to get them back into the game. 6 shot attempts were blocked by Mammoth players, and another 6 made it to Vejmelka. That included 4 shots in just 5 seconds, but the Wasatch Wall expertly stopped them all, Just as the penalty expired, Marino corralled a puck to be cleared down towards the empty net. Initially hitting Ian Cole’s skate, the puck came back to Marino, who – this time missed his own man – and hit the back of the open cage, shutting down the Wild for good.

An exhausted Vejmelka celebrated, knowing he’s going to not have to do the same thing tomorrow. Final score 6 – 2. Minnesota ended up with 35 shots for the night, the most Utah’s let up all year. That included 20 shots in the final period – the most Utah has allowed during any period all year.

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3 GOALS (THE GOOD):

Schmaltz & Cooley… again. If I said “This player seems to be on the verge of a hat trick every game, is wily, tough to play against, opportunistic, and makes everyone around him better” you might not know which of the two I’m talking about. That’s an amazing situation for the Mammoth. It’s hard to have one player of that caliber on your team, let alone two.

Logan Cooley has 7 points in 2 games, 5 goals and 2 assists. Tonight, he made another highlight reel goal, back checked to prevent a number of scoring chances, and propelled his line – including JJ Peterka – to a 5 point night.

Nick Schmaltz has 5 points in 2 games, 3 goals and 2 assists. Tonight, he had another amazing breakaway goal, played great defense when the game was on the line, and also was wily and tough and backchecking and gave the defensemen some points tonight as well.

With a lethal option on each of the top two lines, teams are going to find it difficult to game plan against Utah. Do you stop Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, or do you stop Cooley, Gunner, and JJ? Sounds like a nightmare for opposing coaches, and we’re all here for it.

Karel Vejmelka had an amazing bounce back game. The St. Louis game was not kind to Karel’s stats. He posted just a .800 save percentage, and 4 goals against. It was his second sub .900 outing, the other being against the Sharks a few contests ago. Veggie, however, raised that average quite a bit tonight – he faced a season high 35 shots, 20 in the third period alone, and stopped one of the most potent power plays from high danger chances at least 8 times.

For stat nerds like me, Vejmelka faced 18 medium and high-danger shots, and had an expected goals against of 4.23. He saved 2.23 goals above expected – a sign of an absolutely stellar night. Without Veggie in net, this game gets out of hand quickly. He absolutely deserved a star tonight.

Third periods are the Yin to the second period Yang. If Utah has a lead going into the third, they are 5-0 this year. They are outscoring opponents 13-8 in the final frame. They were allowing 10 or less shots in all but two games. They have been able to control play for the most part, closing games out they need to close out. Tonight was no exception; despite multiple chances gifted to the Wild, they were unable to get the equalizer. When needed, the team came up clutch and buried the dagger when it was needed.

The team had a bend-but-don’t-break personality when it comes to the third period tonight. Tonight they bent, and bent, and bent, and qualified for the women’s Olympic gymnastic team, but they didn’t break.

3 CHIRPS (THE BAD):

Discipline tonight was abysmal. When a team has a nearly 1 in 3 chance of scoring on you during a power play, the smart move is to not allow them a power play. The opposite of the smart move is to give that team two power plays early in the third period in a one-goal game.

The Hayton penalty was unfortunate – a follow through is usually impossible to control. However, the McBain trip was completely unnecessary and could have been disastrous. Thankfully, the best PKer on the ice tonight was between the pipes, and aside from the first PP tally, Veggie stood as tall as the Wasatch Mountains tonight.

Additionally, a team that draws some of the most penalties against this year was only able to draw a single power play. This is a bit of stripes trying to manipulate the game, but at least the special teams war was won by Team Tusk tonight – not for lack of trying to give it away…

The “clench” continues. Years ago, I coined a phrase I will be more family friendly and say “butt clenching” game. It was a game that you should have won handily, but somehow, somewhere, the game got way too close for comfort and you spent long stretches clenching because any shot could have tied or lost you the game. Tonight, after a 3-0 lead, we had yet another clench game.

This team has some clutch scorers, big time players that make big time plays when needed most. Cooley, Peterka, Gunner, Keller, Schmaltz can all deliver a winner for you. However, the past two games saw multi-goal leads evaporate because the team lost some of the killer instinct. Tonight, the clench came because of two penalty kills with a 1 goal lead. Had our goaltending been anywhere near average, that clenching wouldn’t have stopped with about 4 minutes to go.

When up by more than 2, the team needs to find a way to shut the door and lock down opponents. With such a great shot suppressing team, it’s surprising to me that they’re unable to keep to that plan until their backs are up against the wall, after what should have been an easy run.

Let me unclench, guys.

The NHL Schedulemaker gave us a gift with some early season matchups against divisional opponents. However, the most dangerous of them all – Dallas – continues to struggle. We don’t get a chance to steal points from them for weeks to come.

In a season where we’ll have played all our divisional opponents on the road by the third week of the season, why are we going to miss out on the point pinata that Dallas has been so far this year? Really unfortunately, the way this team is playing – especially when you know Dallas will be at, or close to the top when the playoffs hit. If we have a chance to take one of the top 2 spots and fall short by a couple of points, this schedule this month will play a factor, and that sucks.

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Next up:

The third, and last divisional matchup of the stretch, as the Mammoth have a quick turnaround and early game against the Winnipeg Jets. Game starts Sunday, 4PM local.