SALT LAKE CITY — The first-round series between the Vegas Golden Knights and Utah Mammoths promises to be a wild affair in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Boy, did we have a crazy time at Delta Center on Monday.
Vegas leads 3-0. Utah State went on a four-game winning streak and took the lead in the third quarter. Brett Howden tied the game with his second goal of the game. Then in overtime, a goal was ruled out for offside, which would have given the Cavaliers the win and made a hero out of Pavel Dorofeev, who had been struggling heading into Game 4.
But with less than a minute on the clock, Shea Theodore, the original Golden Misfit player and one of the many veterans whose name is etched on the 2023 Stanley Cup, beat Karel Vejmelka with 51 seconds left to give the Cavaliers a 5-4 win and even the series with the Mammoths at 2-2.
With the series now in full swing, with Game 5 set for Wednesday at 7 pm at T-Mobile Arena, the Cavaliers may have regained the upper hand. It’s now a best-of-three series, with two of the three games taking place in Las Vegas.
“We found a way,” Cavaliers coach John Tortorella said. “We started really well. Lost ourselves a little bit. The momentum swung a little bit in their favor. But we hung in there.
“The guys knew it was a big game and kept the series in good frame for us. Everybody contributed. I’m happy for the guys. They hung in there.”
But it won’t be easy. The Cavaliers will have to rely on all their experience, all their grit and a little bit of luck to get the results they want.
Tortorella really changed everything. Some moves worked, like putting Dorofeev on the top line alongside Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev. Dorofeev finally found something that clicked for him with a time of 1:12 in the fourth game.
He had some great penalty kicks, including Howden’s shorthanded goal late in the first period.
But not everything Tortorella tries works. The power play continued to struggle, going 0-for-4 from the field. As the game wore on, he still hit the beater with his line, moving Mark Stone, including on the top line, while relying on a fourth line of Nick Dodd, Cole Smith and Colton Sissons.
“It’s a good feeling to know you’re trusted,” said Smith, who scored Vegas’ third goal to give the Cavaliers a 3-0 lead in the second period. “As long as you get more ice time, you take it.”
Ultimately, however, the Cavaliers’ experience came into play as they withstood Utah’s tough challenge. The Mammoths narrowed the deficit to 3-2 with 28 seconds left on goals from Nick Schmaltz and Ian Cole, putting the Knights in collective trouble.
“They showed it to us for a while,” said Howden, who helped pacify the sold-out crowd of 12,478 for the second time of the night. “But we hung in there and I thought we got better in overtime and eventually we found a way.”
Theodore said when you’re dealing with long bench changes and sometimes your shifts are extended, you have to work it out in overtime. It’s an exciting feeling when you put the puck on your stick and have a chance to end it and you do it.
“This is great,” Theodore said. “You really don’t want to go into a second overtime. It feels really good. Winning the overtime championship is pretty special.”
Ultimately, our goal was achieved, which was to win a game in Salt Lake City to tie the series. How it happened, Tortorella didn’t care.
“To score twice in the third quarter and be behind and come back and win, that’s what we relied on going forward,” he said. “It was a good game. It was a good hockey game. I thought we won it the first time and I was celebrating in the coaching room and they were yelling ‘They’re not sure,’ so that was a little weird to me.
“I’m happy for the guys. They put in the work. They prepared well. So we tied the game and moved on.”
