The Utah Mammoth hope a return to Salt Lake City will help them find consistency when they host the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night to open a three-game homestand.
The Mammoth are coming off a 2-0 loss to the Calgary Flames on Saturday in the finale of a six-game road trip, which prevented them from winning three in a row after two impressive road wins against the Anaheim Ducks (7-0) and Vancouver Canucks (4-1).
The road trip began with three straight losses, including a discomforting 6-3 defeat against the San Jose Sharks.
“There’s a ton of room for improvement,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said. “We got better during the (Calgary) game, we got better since the start of the season, but it’s a work in progress for us to have that speed, that execution, the moving of the puck quick and moving the puck into speed, and that’s where we’re at our best.”
Once set up in the offensive zone, Tourigny suggested the Mammoth look for some simpler scoring opportunities.
“If you want to score in the league, you need to get in the eyes of the goalie,” Tourigny said. “You need to disturb the defense a little bit more.”
Utah forward Logan Cooley did not play against the Flames because of a lower-body injury that occurred when his left leg collided with the goal post late in the third period against the Canucks on Friday.
Tourigny did not offer any prognosis on Cooley moving forward.
“He didn’t play, that’s what I will say,” Tourigny said.
Cooley leads Utah with 14 goals and ranks third with 23 points.
The Kings performed well in a bounce-back game on Saturday night, beating the visiting Chicago Blackhawks 6-0 after losing to them 2-1 two nights earlier on the same ice.
Los Angeles was held to two goals or fewer in five of the previous six games before Saturday’s offensive explosion.
“It’s been tough treading the last little bit, scoring, and we all know it, it’s not a secret,” Kings forward Alex Turcotte said. “To get six, it felt great, and we were making a lot of plays there. You could tell that we were playing a little bit more free, which is good. A lot of us have been struggling offensively, so we’ve been gripping our sticks a little too much. Definitely it’s nice, but it’s one game, so we’ve got to build off of it.”
Los Angeles coach Jim Hiller said the second goal on Saturday night – Andrei Kuzmenko’s power-play goal at 16:38 of the second period — seemed to free up the Kings. They reeled off four more goals in the next 13 minutes.
“It felt like, at least the players, every one of them, went 10 pounds lighter, and we were just quicker and more fluid,” Hiller said. “We had talked about holding sticks really tight. I think we saw the example of them loosening up.”
Kuzmenko’s goal also was vital because it came on a power play, an area where the Kings have struggled mightily this season. They’re no longer at the bottom of the league in power-play percentage with their 13.8% conversion rate, but they still have a ways to go.
“No matter what way we scored the second goal (on Saturday), it would have been similar,” Hiller said. “But I think the fact that it was a power play, that it was Kuzmenko who was so good for us on the power play last year and hadn’t scored in a while, I think those factors definitely weighed into (the importance).”
