The Utah Mammoth, winners of three of their last four games, are battling to remain in a playoff position as they prepare to host the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday afternoon.
The Mammoth, in the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference, defeated the Minnesota Wild 5-2 on Friday in Salt Lake City as Lawson Crouse scored two goals and Clayton Keller had a goal and two assists.
“I think we’re obviously a really fast team and can make a lot of plays, but I think that’s the biggest thing for us is sticking to our identity as much as we can,” Keller said.
“It’s hard to do, and I think we’ve got better as the year’s gone on, and the good teams are the most consistent. Even when you don’t feel your best, you find a way. I think we’re showing steps in the right direction, and we’ve got to be more consistent.”
Logan Cooley and Barrett Hayton also scored while Jack McBain, Nick Schmaltz and defenseman Mikhail Sergechev each had two assists.
“They’re hungry, they want to go at it and they stay on top of their opponent,” Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said of the top line of Crouse, Keller and Schmaltz. “You saw today, the goal of (Keller) is a turnover caused by a lot of pressure on one of the best defensemen in the world (the Wild’s Quinn Hughes). That shows how good they can be when they have that aggression.”
Karel Vejmelka made 21 saves for Utah to win three of his last four outings. Vejmelka is 28-15-2 with a 2.60 goals-against average and .902 save percentage.
“They’re a great hockey team,” Wild defenseman Brock Faber said. “They skate really well. They’re really skilled.”
The Blackhawks lost their third straight game on Saturday night, a 3-1 decision to the host Colorado Avalanche.
Chicago has lost eight of its last nine games (1-6-2).
“We need more depth scoring, for sure. We were close to having a lot of chances, and we just didn’t handle the puck great,” Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill said after the game. “Like we could have had probably three or four 3-on-1s, and we just kind of mishandled them.
“So I thought there was opportunities for offense there that we just weren’t able to take advantage of.”
Connor Bedard scored Chicago’s lone goal to give him 25 for the season. He also has 30 assists for 55 points in 46 games.
Seven points (five goals and two assists) have come in Bedard’s last seven games.
“We got to help him, obviously. I mean, it can’t just be on Connor,” Blackhawks captain Nick Foligno said. “He’s doing his job. He’s getting scoring chances. He’s making plays.
“I mean, he could’ve had five tonight. So it’s on the rest of us to pick it up and find a way to help him out, give him some run support, and that’s just only going to make our team better, right? I think we got to figure out how to get more than one goal here and make it count.”
Spencer Knight stopped 32 shots for Chicago in taking his third consecutive loss. He is 16-18-7 with a 2.62 GAA and .908 save percentage.
