Mammoth end Stars' 15-game point streak with 6-3 road win
by Jaxon Wynder ksl · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- Utah Mammoth ended Dallas Stars' 15-game point streak with a 6-3 win.
- Vitek Vanecek stopped 27 of 30 shots helping Utah break a losing streak.
- Jack McBain's shorthanded goal and Kailer Yamamoto's score sealed the victory.
DALLAS — They say everything's bigger in Texas. That includes Mammoth wins.
The red-hot Dallas Stars entered Monday's game on a 15-game point streak after posting a 14-0-1 record to tie a franchise record. Utah on the other hand, was looking to snap a four-game losing streak.
Despite 20 points separating the Stars and Mammoth in the standings, one would not be able to tell with the way the two teams went after it Monday night.
Each team went back and forth, with their goal scoring in the first two periods, but a four-goal third period pushed Utah past Dallas with the 6-3 victory.
"It's a team that has a lot of pushes offensively, and even when they did that we stuck with it," Jack McBain said. "We hung in there and we were able to capitalize on our chances. I thought we had a really good third period."
Vitek Vanecek made the start in goal for the Mammoth, giving Karel Vejmelka some extra rest. Vanecek made the most of a rare start, stopping 27 of the 30 shots he faced while shutting the door late and helping Utah end its losing streak.
"Dallas is a really good team, and they were pushing hard, and they're tough to contain; and even then we bent but we didn't break," Utah head coach Andre Tourigny said. "We were solid, solid mentally."
In a physical first period that set the tone, Sam Steel got the Stars on the board first with a goal for an early lead. Jamie Benn found Steel near the front of the net to set up the goal and score for Steel.
Mammoth captain, Clayton Keller, answered with a goal of his own after he managed to get his shot from near the boards past Stars goaltender Casey DeSmith and into the net.
A pair of fights helped get both sides fired up. Brandon Tanev and Adam Erne dropped the gloves and fought, but a mixup between McBain and Lian Bischel turned into a heavyweight bout that included plenty of haymakers.
Nate Schmidt helped Utah take the lead in the second period with his fifth goal of the season, where his shot found the back of the net after a Dallas skater screened DeSmith, preventing the netminder from seeing Schmidt's shot.
The Stars answered to tie the game up on Wyatt Johnston's 37th goal of the season. He scored after deflecting a shot from Miro Heiskanen and changed the angle of the puck to get it past Vanecek.
Both teams struggled on the power play, with a combined 1-for-6 on the man advantage; however, it was the Utah penalty kill that shined, especially when the team needed it the most.
After Heiskanen failed to control the puck on the attack, McBain stole it and took the puck the rest of the way for the shorthanded goal to help the Mammoth retake the lead.
In the fourth and final meeting of the season between the two teams, Utah finally prevented Dallas from scoring a power-play goal.
"This is what you want out of your group," Schmidt said. "You want to be able to be comfortable in these situations against good teams. This is a really good team in the league and you have to be able to really settle into these types of high-pressure situations. I like the way our guys responded."
The Mammoth weren't done there.
After breaking up a pass, Kailer Yamamoto took the puck the other way before he scored his first goal since his two-goal performance against the Stars on January 31.
Dallas began to play like it knew the impressive point streak was in jeopardy, which resulted in a couple of late penalties that halted any chance of a comeback attempt.
A brutal start to Utah's final power play gave the Stars plenty of chances at a short-handed goal of its own. Michael Carcone was finally able to take the puck into the Dallas' zone, and he buried a wrist shot to grab the three-goal lead.
Lawson Crouse added an empty-net goal for the Mammoth before Erne scored a last-second goal to close the gap in a dominant performance from Utah.
The bottom two lines stepped up in the third period for the Mammoth as they handed the Stars their first regulation loss since Jan. 22.
"Everybody was good tonight," Tourigny said. "Everybody contributed in a certain way. Big fight from (McBain) and (Tanev). I think we had physicality throughout our lineup. Guys shared responsibility on face-off. I think everybody chipped in today."
Utah will be back in action Thursday in Las Vegas to take on the Golden Knights before facing the Ducks on the second night of a back-to-back on Friday at home.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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Jaxon Wynder