SALT LAKE CITY — What was once a seven-game win streak has officially turned into a two-game losing streak for the Utah Mammoth.
The Eastern Conference contender Tampa Bay Lightning came into the Delta Center on Sunday afternoon and beat the Mammoth 4-2 to end a perfect 4-0 start at home for Utah this season.
Perhaps most concerning, though, was the end of an eight-game streak with at least 1 point from Utah’s top two lines, with Sunday’s goals coming from Lawson Crouse and Kailer Yamamoto on the third and fourth lines, respectively. Defenseman Ian Cole had the lone assist on both goals.
“We’re professional athletes and we come to try to hold ourselves to a standard,” Cole said of the loss. “We’ve done that well so far this year, and today was not up to it.”
The loss drops Utah to 8-4 on the year, though the Mammoth are still clinging onto a top-three spot in the Western Conference and Central Division thanks to its seven-game win streak, which remains the second-longest in the NHL so far this season. Tampa now owns the longest active win streak in the league at five.
“They work and they don’t give you time and space, so you need to grind the game,” head coach Andre Tourigny said of the former back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Lightning. “Really happy with Crouse’s line play and really happy with (Yamamoto’s) line play. They show up in that kind of game, and that’s what you want.”
Yamamoto led the Mammoth in shots on Sunday with four, while the top line of Nick Schmaltz, Clayton Keller and Barrett Hayton were held to just three, with all three coming from Keller.
Schmaltz entered Sunday with the longest point streak on the team at eight consecutive games and had the fourth-most points among all NHL skaters at 17. The 29-year-old forward has been particularly deadly on the power play this season, which Utah went 0-for-3 on against the Lightning.
“They win a lot of battles, the board battles, and they made good plays with the puck to get clears and stuff like that,” Tourigny said when asked about the power play. “They play really hard, they compete and they win those battles. That made the difference.”
Utah now heads back on the road, searching for answers in a challenging spot with a back-to-back in Buffalo and Toronto on Tuesday and Wednesday.
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