Crouse making most of Stanley Cup Playoff experience with Mammoth

SALT LAKE CITY -- Lawson Crouse looked up into the stands after the Utah Mammoth scored their first goal in their first Stanley Cup Playoff home game. He saw the fans twirling their rally towels and felt their passion.

“They really energized us,” he said.

It has been a journey to get to this point -- for Utah, yes, but also for Crouse, who experienced a home playoff crowd for the first time in his 10-year NHL career.

The 28-year-old forward went on to score two goals, throw four hits and help the penalty kill go 4-for-4 in 4-2 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at Delta Center on Friday in Game 3 of the Western Conference First Round.

Utah leads the best-of-7 series entering Game 4 here Monday (9:30 p.m. ET; Utah16, SCRIPPS, ESPN, SN360, SN, TVAS, CBC).

“He had a great game, and I think he’s been waiting for this moment for a long time,” defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said. “So, I’m happy for him, and I know he’s going to continue to play a great game.”

The Florida Panthers selected Crouse with the No. 11 pick of the 2015 NHL Draft and traded him to the Arizona Coyotes on Aug. 25, 2016.

He played 504 regular-season games for the Coyotes from 2016-24 but only nine playoff games -- all at Rogers Place in Edmonton in 2020 with no fans in attendance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The NHL Board of Governors voted to establish a new franchise in Utah on April 18, 2024, with the team to acquire Arizona’s hockey assets. Utah flew some former Coyotes to Salt Lake City six days later to visit their new home.

Wearing black hoodies with the NHL shield and “UTAH EST. 2024,” the players stepped from the plane and walked into a hangar full of youth hockey players holding signs. Crouse was first in line to give a kid a fist bump.

About 12,400 people packed Delta Center for a welcome event that night. The players introduced themselves, and when Crouse got the microphone, he helped lay the foundation for Friday, yelling, “Let’s make some more noise!”

“For us as players,” he said then, “we’re so honored and so happy to be a part of this process and really looking forward to the future and obviously building something special here and making history.”

Crouse has played almost every game for Utah since, 81 each of the past two regular seasons. He has watched the team identity evolve from the Utah Hockey Club to the Utah Mammoth, moved from the temporary practice facility to the palatial permanent one, and seen the excitement grow in the community.

He tied his NHL career high with 24 goals this season, and with 20 assists and 44 points, he was one short of his NHL career high in each of those categories. He’s tied for the team lead in goals (two) and points (three) in this series.

But coach Andre Tourigny said his impact on the team is “way above just the production.”

“He’s a good player, but he’s a hell of a man,” Tourigny said.

Tourigny said Crouse gave the Mammoth “100 percent of his soul” Friday -- focused, committed, all in.

“There’s nothing I can ask him that will be too small or too big of a detail for him,” Tourigny said. “… If I tell him to open the door tomorrow, he will open the door. That’s no problem. Pass the water? He will pass the water. There’s no ego in that sense. He will do whatever the team needs to win and whatever he needs to do to be better.”

Clayton Keller is Utah’s captain. But Crouse is an alternate, and although he has little playoff experience, he has brought a veteran presence in stressful situations.

“I’ve got a boatload of things to say about ‘Crousey,’” Weegar said. “He’s a great leader. He kind of brings it all. He’s a guy that you look to down the bench when the game’s tight to calm everybody down.”

In the postgame press conference Friday, a reporter pointed out how the stakes are higher in the playoffs and you play the same team night after night. He asked about the difference in intensity compared to the regular season.

Crouse gave an interesting answer.

This is new to Utah, new to Crouse and new to many of his teammates. At the same time, Crouse knows what to do and what to say.

“It’s playoff hockey,” he said. “You guys are experiencing it just as much as we are. I think the biggest thing that we can take away from these games is, there’s going to be waves on both sides. We’re going to have our pushes. They’re going to have their pushes. It’s just whoever can stick with it.”

As Crouse has shown, if you stick with it, you never know where it’ll take you.

NHL.com independent correspondent Matt Komma contributed to this story