he got hit by a car<\/a>. On his second trip, precisely 10 months later, he scored the game-opening goal.<\/p>\nIt appeared as though Nick Schmaltz had tied it up shortly thereafter, until the officials determined that the puck never actually went in the net \u2014 it just hit the crossbar.<\/p>\n
The Mammoth tied the game for real on a beautiful cross-slot pass from Lawson Crouse to JJ Peterka, and then they took the lead with Dylan Guenther\u2019s signature one-timer on a 5-on-3 power play.<\/p>\n
A less energetic second period yielded no goals for either team, but as the end of the third period drew nigh, the real controversial goal happened. More on that later.<\/p>\n
Overtime was necessary, and the Islanders dominated in that area. The Mammoth hardly touched the puck the entire time, which eventually allowed 18-year-old rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer to score his seventh goal and 15th point through 18 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looks good,\u201d said Mammoth defenseman Nate Schmidt of Schaefer. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be a good player in this league for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
TakeawaysNew third line still rolling<\/p>\n
It only took the Peterka-McBain-Crouse line 3:22 to score twice on Wednesday. They continued their success on Friday, scoring in the opening frame to give them three goals in their first two periods.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like JJ has jumped into our line perfectly,\u201d Lawson Crouse said. \u201cWith myself, (Jack McBain) and (Michael Carcone), we kind of created an identity we wanted to play, and JJ\u2019s complimenting that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crouse said the system is to get the puck in deep and then go get it back. He and McBain, who are both 6-foot-4 and in the neighborhood of 220 pounds, are built for playing in the corners. <\/p>\n
Peterka, who\u2019s smaller but quicker and more of a proven goal scorer, just has to get open.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s doing a great job and obviously reaping some rewards and getting some goals here, so it\u2019s been great,\u201d Crouse said of Peterka.<\/p>\n
Penalty kill thriving, power play dwindling<\/p>\n
Yes, the Mammoth scored a power play goal on Friday, but they were still only one for six on the night, and the lone power play goal came with a two-man advantage.<\/p>\n
Given that they had nearly two full minutes of 5-on-3 time, the odds of them not scoring were slim. Their problem, at least in this game, came from predictability. The bulk of the Mammoth\u2019s power play goals come from the same three plays:<\/p>\n
Dylan Guenther\u2019s one-timer from the left circle.Clayton Keller\u2019s one-timer from the right circle.Nick Schmaltz\u2019s quick shot from the bumper position.<\/p>\n
All the Islanders had to do was keep a man on each of those players. The Mammoth could seldom string together more than two or three passes before they were disrupted by the Islanders\u2019 penalty killers.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the penalty kill has been perfect for eight straight games \u2014 and three of those opponents are among the league\u2019s top 10 power play teams as of Friday night.<\/p>\n
Was it kicking motion?<\/p>\n
Some Mammoth fans left this one feeling cheated.<\/p>\n
With 6:16 left in the third period, Jonathan Drouin put the puck in the net by kicking it. That\u2019s typically not allowed.<\/p>\n
In this instance, however, it went off Schmidt\u2019s stick on its way in, which was the basis for the officials\u2019 ruling of \u201cgood goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter looking at all available replays, video review determined that Nate Schmidt\u2018s stick propelled the puck into his own net,\u201d the NHL public relations department said in a statement<\/a> after the game.<\/p>\nBut the NHL rule book has a higher standard than that:<\/p>\n
\u201cA goal cannot be scored on a play where an attacking player propels the puck with his skate into the net \u2014 even by means of a subsequent deflection off of another player \u2014 using a \u2018distinct kicking motion.\u2019”<\/p>\n
It can\u2019t have simply deflected off the defending player \u2014 the defending player has to have actually propelled it in. Schmidt did make intentional contact with it, but his stick was going the opposite direction of the puck, so it\u2019s hard to say he propelled it in.<\/p>\n
When asked what he thought of the ruling, Schmidt chose his words carefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t put my stick there again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mammoth head coach Andr\u00e9 Tourigny agreed with the call, though his stated reasoning did not align with the NHL rule book.<\/p>\n
Regardless of the ruling, the Mammoth could have controlled the situation by taking advantage of more of their scoring chances. Had they had a larger lead, the officials\u2019 ruling would not have affected the outcome of the game.<\/p>\n
Goal of the gameCrouse to Peterka<\/p>\n
Islanders goalie David Rittich (\u201cBig Save Dave\u201d as he was once known) didn\u2019t stand a chance on this one. What a pass by Crouse, who is having a bounce-back year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Controversy makes sports fun, right? There was no shortage of controversy in the Utah Mammoth\u2019s 3-2 overtime loss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,23448],"class_list":["post-40421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-news-feed-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}