3 Takeaways From Mammoth’s 5-0 Loss to Wild

It didn’t get much better from there. Nick DeSimone and Ian Cole ended the game with a minus-two. John Marino and Nate Schmidt weren’t minuses and were the best pairing during the game, but that’s not saying much considering the score.

The Mammoth are clearly missing Mikhail Sergachev and his effective two-way play. I’m not saying the team would’ve beaten the Wild with the defenseman in the lineup, but he could’ve fixed a couple of the defensive errors that happened.

Heading into Thursday’s game against the Blackhawks, it will be interesting to see if Maksymilian Szuber gets a shot in the lineup. His play in the American Hockey League (AHL) has certainly warranted it. It’s an option the Mammoth should definitely consider after a poor night from the blueline that made too many risky plays. 

Go(ing) Crazy

It feels like at the end of every good stretch, the same issues come up again. The special teams were once again questionable at best, a pattern that has been inconsistent.

Starting with the penalty kill, it was solid. They stopped all four of the Wild’s power play attempts, which is pretty good considering the team has a top-five power play in the league.

However, the fact that the Wild had four power plays to begin with isn’t great. The Mammoth weren’t disciplined throughout the game. Every time they had momentum, a penalty would come up, ending that and forcing the Mammoth to kill the penalty. 

“We felt like we were pretty dialed in early on, a couple too many penalties, and then obviously the game kind of got away from us,” Lawson Crouse said.

It was the end of the road trip, and the team was tired, but taking that many penalties isn’t good. The team knows better than that, as it’s an issue that’s come up before. 

At the end of the day, the Mammoth had a solid first period, but the amount of penalties the team took cancelled out any momentum they had. It was the only period where they weren’t outshot, and who knows, maybe the Mammoth would’ve scored a goal if they had more five-on-five time.

“We played two really hard periods,” head coach André Tourigny said. “It’s the end of the trip. We fought hard. I think we made too many individual mistakes…We got in the box a little bit too much, but I liked our first two periods. The third period did not start the way we wanted, and they buried us, but that’s what it is.”

Then there’s the power play. Once again, it struggled on Tuesday. In the past three games, the Mammoth have had six power play opportunities. They’ve scored zero goals across those chances. This is after scoring three goals on four opportunities at the very beginning of this road trip, where many thought the power play was starting to improve.

There’s not much else left to say about the power play and the discipline. It’s been reiterated multiple times that the Mammoth need to find a way to stay out of the box and be more consistent on the man advantage. Until then, that’s a big difference between the Wild and the Mammoth, in which the Wild are simply better, as seen on Friday.

A Good Road Trip Ruined by the End

Halfway through this road trip, it seemed like this was going to be a great one for the Mammoth. They had gotten all six available points and were coming off a big overtime win against the Columbus Blue Jackets that felt like a playoff game.

In the final two games of the road trip, the Mammoth only got one of the available four games, ending the road trip with seven points. Seven out of 10 isn’t bad, but the final two losses just put a sour note on the trip.

Winning the final game of the road trip is always hard, especially when it’s against a really good team. The problem isn’t that the Mammoth lost, though, as we emphasized before, every point is valuable. The problem is that the Mammoth didn’t even keep it close and looked beaten. There was no fight in this team on Tuesday.

Especially coming off a bad loss against the Blackhawks on Monday, these past two games have been bad showings by the Mammoth. The three wins to start the trip make up for it, but now on a two-game losing streak, the winning needs to come back on Thursday.

“In the last two games, we could have been much better, but ultimately, we did a really good job on this road trip,” Crouse said. “So, time to go home, get some rest, and get ready for a couple of games.”

The Mammoth are set to play two games at home before heading off on a quick two-game road trip. Getting back to the level of play that the team was at before Monday’s game is something that needs to be done. The defense needs to be better, special teams need to improve, and penalties need to stop popping up as much as they are.

It was a solid road trip. The Mammoth remain a couple of points ahead of the Seattle Kraken and the LA Kings, who are tied for the second wild card spot, and both lost on Tuesday. The reason why they remain ahead by a handful of points is because of their hot start to their trip. Despite the back-to-back losses, eyes are now set forward at the two games at home, leaving the 5-0 loss behind them.

“We have to take a step back and look at the trip,” Tourigny said. “There’s a lot of positive there. The boys fought hard today. That’s a good team. We need to give them (the Wild) credit. They were waiting for us; they knew what had happened the last time we played them this year, so they were ready. It is what it is, but I’m excited to go back home and have a little bit of rest and get ready.”

The Mammoth will head back home to the Delta Center and play the Blackhawks on Thursday, who are 24-29-11 this season. These two teams last met on Monday, where Frank Nazar scored the overtime winner. The Blackhawks have not played since. They lead the season series 3-0.