On Wednesday night, the Utah Mammoth hosted the Montreal Canadiens at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.
This was already the second time these two interconference opponents had met this season, with the Canadiens coming away with a dominant 6-2 victory in Montreal in early November.
Game Recap
Continuing their domination from the first matchup, the Canadiens opened the scoring on a goal from Zachary Bolduc on a one-timer, fed by Lane Hutson, which came on a power play nearing the midway point of the first period.
They followed that up, extending their lead to two six minutes later when Cole Caufield set Nick Suzuki up for a one-timer off the rush. This goal was Suzuki’s second point of the game after being credited with the secondary assist on the first goal of the game, and was also the 400th point in his NHL career.
The Canadiens’ 2-0 lead held through the rest of the first period and until the Mammoth broke the ice, answering with a power-play goal of their own when Barrett Hayton finished off a great setup pass in the slot from Clayton Keller just past the halfway point of the game.
Less than two minutes later, Logan Cooley won an offensive zone board battle and knocked the puck to Dylan Guenther, who made a great move to beat Ivan Demidov and set up Kailer Yamamoto for the goal that tied the game 2-2.
With another goal, from Michael Carcone, capping off three goals in just over four minutes, the Mammoth took a 3-2 lead and carried that into the second intermission. That was more goals in the second period than the Mammoth scored in the first 80 minutes against the Canadiens this season.
Early in the third, the Canadiens found the back of the net twice, but the first was called back for offside. However, shortly after, on the power play, after a flurry of chances, Suzuki scored his second of the game to tie the game 3-3.
Again, under two minutes later, the Canadiens regained the lead, on Demidov’s fifth of the season when he beat Karel Vejmelka clean on a wrist shot from the top of the left circle.
This lead finally held through the final 15 minutes, and the Canadiens went on to close out the 4-3 victory, holding off the Mammoth’s late push. Both of these teams will be back in action on Friday. The Canadiens against the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Mammoth head out on the road for a matchup with the Dallas Stars.
