SALT LAKE CITY — The Vegas Golden Knights delivered a message in Game 6 against the Utah Mammoth: there would be no comeback. A 5-1 victory Friday night at Delta Center clinched the first-round series and set up a second-round meeting with the Anaheim Ducks.
The defining moment came late in the second period, when Mitch Marner scored with 45 seconds left to give the Knights a 2-0 lead. The goal was the exclamation point on a shift that lasted 2 minutes, 42 seconds — an eternity in hockey — during which Utah’s skaters were trapped in their own zone.
“The second goal was a really important part of the game for us, just the shift itself,” coach John Tortorella said.
The Knights’ top line of Jack Eichel, Ivan Barbashev and Pavel Dorofeyev, along with defensemen Noah Hanifin and Rasmus Andersson, each played nearly two minutes of the shift. Eichel exited with 10 seconds left, and Marner jumped on, took a feed from Barbashev, and fired a slapshot from the right circle that found the far corner.
“I think it was two lines that went out there and really just put their force down, cycled the puck well, made plays when they were there,” Marner said. “I thought we did a really good job.”
Utah cut the lead to 2-1 early in the third period on a goal by Kailer Yamamoto, but Colton Sissons answered less than two minutes later to restore the two-goal cushion. The Mammoth never threatened again.
“We’ve been here before,” captain Mark Stone said. “We don’t have the panic maybe some teams do. We can calm ourselves pretty quickly.”
The Knights fell behind 2-1 in the series after losing Game 3 in Salt Lake City but responded with two overtime wins and a decisive Game 6 performance. Tortorella praised the Mammoth, who won 40-plus games this season.
“I have a tremendous respect for Andre and his staff,” Tortorella said of Utah coach Andre Tourigny. “That’s a good hockey team. … We’re fortunate we’re moving on.”
