The Utah Mammoth showed why they brought a franchise-best nine-game points streak (8-0-1) into this matchup against the Lightning. Despite the result, the Mammoth played well enough to have earned at least one point out of the game. Andrei Vasilevskiy was the primary reason why they didn’t.
For much of the first half of the contest, Utah successfully attacked the Lightning’s end with speed. But Vasilevskiy kept them off the board. Several of his saves came on dangerous looks, including five stops on back-to-back Utah power plays in the second period.
The tide began to turn in the second half of the middle stanza. That’s when the Lightning received back-to-back power plays of their own. They cashed in on the second of those—Darren Raddysh drilled a slapshot from the left circle over the glove of Karel Vejmelka at 17:38.
The Mammoth pressed the attack in the opening minutes of the third, but by the five-minute mark, the Lightning were dictating play. For much of the rest of the period, the Lightning forced the Mammoth to play without the puck in the defensive zone. Utah’s best chance to tie things up came just past the 10-minute mark when Clayton Keller had a breakaway. But Vasilevskiy stopped the attempt. Three minutes later, the Mammoth received a third and final power play. But unlike their first two chances, it was a quiet PP. The Lightning held them without a single shot attempt.
Lawson Crouse took an offensive-zone roughing penalty with 2:31 remaining, putting the Tampa Bay on a power play for the next two minutes. Not only did the Lightning end up scoring on the man advantage, but they did so after 1:45 of clock time had elapsed. Anthony Cirelli won an offensive-zone faceoff, and soon after, he wired a shot from the slot that caromed off Vejmelka and rolled across the goal line at 19:14.
The Lightning were playing their third game in four nights and hadn’t gotten back from Saturday’s game in Columbus until the early morning hours on Sunday. But thanks to Vasilevskiy, they withstood Utah’s surge over the opening period and a half before scoring the all-important first goal.
Lightning Radio Three Stars of the Game (as selected by Phil Esposito):
- Andrei Vasilevskiy — Lightning. 28-save shutout.
- Karel Vejmelka — Mammoth. 27 saves.
- Anthony Cirelli — Lightning. Goal.
