Despite a dominant performance in shots on goal, the Vegas Golden Knights lost 4-2 to the Utah Mammoth in Game 3 on Friday night in Salt Lake City, falling behind 2-1 in the first-round playoff series.
Vegas outshot Utah 32-12, including a 10-1 advantage in the first 10 minutes, but trailed 4-0 before mounting a comeback. The Mammoth scored four goals on their first eight shots over the first 29 minutes.
“I thought we took a step forward in how we have to play from Game 2,” Golden Knights coach John Tortorella said.
The Knights lost Game 2 at home 3-2 on Tuesday. In Game 3, they neutralized Utah’s speed and limited scoring chances, but the early deficit proved insurmountable.
“We gave up 27, 28 scoring chances (in Game 2). That certainly didn’t happen tonight,” Tortorella said. “It’s a series (of) ebbs and flows. I liked a lot of our minutes tonight.”
Utah’s Mackenzie Weegar opened the scoring on a bad bounce that deflected off goalie Carter Hart. Dylan Guenther made it 2-0 on a power-play blast. “No one’s stopping Guenther’s shot,” Tortorella said. “That’s just a bomb.”
Lawson Crouse added two goals in the second period. The first came after Jack Eichel lost an offensive-zone faceoff; Crouse skated down the middle and tipped the puck past Hart. The second followed a turnover by Shea Theodore, with Crouse receiving a pass from captain Clayton Keller and scoring from the slot.
Vegas got goals from Reilly Smith and an unnamed player (source did not specify second goal scorer) in the third period but couldn’t complete the comeback. The Knights went 0-for-4 on the power play and have scored two goals in each of the last two games.
“I think there’s a reason why it’s a seven-game series and not a one-game playoff or a three-game series, right?” said fourth-line center Nic Dowd, who has two goals in the series. “You’re not going to win every single game. … I think we can take a lot of positives out of this game. We can go back and look and correct some things, but overall, I thought we played well.”
Game 4 is Sunday in Salt Lake City.
