Utah Falls to Boston, 6-1

BOSTON - In their fifth game in eight nights, the Utah Mammoth fell to the Boston Bruins, 6-1. Center Jack McBain had Utah’s lone goal, while Dmitri Simashev and Barrett Hayton assisted on the third period tally.

Bruins captain David Pastrnak led his team with four points, including a pair of power play goals. Morgan Geekie (1G, 2A), Matthew Poitras (1G, 1A) and Casey Mittelstadt (1G) were also on the scoresheet for Boston.

Following the game, head coach André Tourigny and captain Clayton Keller reflected on Thursday’s loss and where Utah struggled.

“Tough night,” Tourigny said following the game. “We had a good start. We had good pucks deep and (a) few good scoring chances, but they capitalized early on their chance and from there, it was tough for us to come back. Their goalie (Jeremy Swayman) played well. Obviously our special teams, (which) were really good since starting the season for us, tonight was not the case. They won the battle and I think that’s what tipped the scale.”

“We just weren’t connected,” Captain Clayton Keller explained. “Just not a good game. The (power play) as well. I don’t know what it was tonight, but we got to flush it (and) be confident. We’ll learn from tonight. Not (going to) be smooth all year long. We’re a confident group and we know how good we can be, so we’ll learn from tonight and be ready to go against Buffalo.”

Boston converted on three of its four power play chances, including a pair of power play tallies in the middle frame, separated by three minutes and 17 seconds. Utah’s power play failed to capitalize on any of its seven chances. 

Goaltender Sebastian Cossa started the game; however, after three goals against, he was pulled. Cossa had five saves on eight shots. Karel Vejmelka played 43:49 in the loss and made 11 saves on 14 shots. Thursday was Cossa’s second career NHL start and third NHL game. It’s an opportunity for him to grow through adversity. 

“It will be a great learning experience for him,” Tourigny said about Cossa. “What’s important is he cannot beat himself up. There’s a tip, there’s a screen, there’s stuff happened. It’s not Cossa or anybody in particular (with) our team. I think it’s a team effort, coach, player, everybody, we need to look at what we can do better.”

In order to move past this loss, the Mammoth will need to reset and refocus ahead of their game on Saturday. However, Tourigny said the team needs to sit with the loss first.

“The first thing I think is to let it sting a little bit,” Tourigny said. “I think we need to sit on it and let us think before reloading anything. Need to think about what we can take from that game, and coaches will look at the tape and make a better assessment tomorrow than we can do with emotion tonight.”

Utah will quickly get back to work as the Mammoth have a day and a half to prepare for the Buffalo Sabres, their final opponent on this five-game road trip. The team has preached staying even keel through the highs and the lows of a season. This is another opportunity for the team to do that.

“We’ll watch some clips from things that we can learn from,” Keller explained. “You (have to) have a short memory in this league. You can’t get too high. There’s so many good teams and there’s no easy night ever. (We have to) be ready for Buffalo, for sure.”

Final Stats

Shots: UTA 37, BOS 22

Power Play: BOS 3/4, UTA 0/7

Hits: BOS 23, UTA 19

Blocked Shots: BOS 23, UTA 6

Face-Off %: UTA 53.6%, BOS 46.4%

Upcoming Schedule

• Oct. 10: UTA vs BUF

• Oct. 13: TOR vs UTA

• Oct. 17: EDM vs UTA