SALT LAKE CITY — John Tortorella’s Monday morning media availability, ahead of Game 4 between his Vegas Golden Knights and the Utah Mammoth, barely lasted more than a minute.
The veteran coach wasn’t in the mood to talk, other than to say his team would be ready to play. He answered three questions with nothing more than, “We’re ready to play.”
And he was right, at least for the first half of the game.
The Golden Knights came flying out of the starting blocks, shredding the Mammoth with an unrelenting forecheck and scoring three straight goals to open the game. Utah stormed back with four straight goals of its own to force overtime, then Shea Theodore won it for Vegas 5-4 with less than a minute left in overtime to tie the series 2-2.
Pavel Dorofeyev opened the scoring on his first shift of the game. Jack Eichel made a strong play behind the net, absorbing a hit from Utah’s MacKenzie Weegar before finding Ivan Barbashev in the low slot. Barbashev bumped the puck across to Dorofeyev, who crushed it into the wide-open net for his first goal of the series. It was the fourth point of the series for both Barbashev and Eichel, which leads Vegas.
Utah winger Michael Carcone had a golden opportunity to tie the game early on the power play, but sailed his shot over the crossbar. The puck was bouncing in the slot when Lawson Crouse made a great play to dive and knock the puck across to Carcone, who had a wide-open net to shoot at.
Brett Howden extended Vegas’ lead to two with a shorthanded goal late in the first period. Utah netminder Karel Vejmelka hesitated to move the puck and eventually flipped it to the half wall, where it was collected by Vegas forward Mitch Marner. Marner found Howden all alone in front, and he finished the play with a deke around the goaltender.
The Golden Knights controlled the opening frame, pressuring the Mammoth and living in the offensive zone. They allowed only three shots, and took a two-goal lead into the intermission.
Vegas extended its lead to three goals early in the second period, when fourth-line winger Cole Smith scored the first playoff goal of his career. As most of Vegas’ offense did on Monday, it started with a turnover forced on the forecheck. Noah Hanifin shot it from the point, and the puck was sailing well wide of the Utah net before Smith reached out and redirected it past Vejmelka.
The Mammoth eventually found their game midway through the second period and pulled within a goal thanks to back-to-back goals by Nick Schmaltz and Ian Cole. Schmaltz’s goal was a great individual effort, batting a rebound out of the air past Vegas goalie Carter Hart. Only 29 seconds later, Cole made it 3-2 with a shot from the point that beat Hart’s glove, went off the post and into the net.
As the game wore on, Utah’s speed started to show more and more. This game followed a similar pattern to the last two, with the Golden Knights needing far more time with the puck to generate offense than the Mammoth. Vegas holds the puck in the offensive zone for shift after shift, but creates very little with it. Then Utah scores in the blink of an eye going the other direction.
Utah opened the third period with two goals to take a 4-3 lead. The first was a blistering one-timer by Carcone, who redeemed his miss earlier in the game with a shot from a bad angle that beat Hart on the short side. The second was a goal credited to Clayton Keller, who sent a centering pass in front of the Vegas net. It bounced off the traffic in front to give the Mammoth their first lead of the night.
The Golden Knights answered, though: Howden scored his second of the game with a gorgeous tip on a shot from Hanifin to tie it 4-4 midway through the final period.
For a moment, it appeared Dorofeyev won it for the Golden Knights 10 minutes into overtime, putting a rebound over the line, but after a review the officials determined Jack Eichel entered the zone offside, so the goal was overturned.
Theodore won it for Vegas with only 51 seconds left in overtime, one-timing a puck past Vejmelka from the slot.
Dorofeyev ends drought
Tortorella had been searching for a place for Dorofeyev, and he found it Monday night beside Eichel on the Golden Knights’ top line — at least for the start.
The 25-year-old winger, who led Vegas with 37 goals in the regular season, had gone 10 straight playoff games without a goal entering Game 4, and hadn’t scored at even strength in 13 postseason games dating back to 2024.
Dorofeyev started Game 3 on Friday with Mitch Marner and Brett Howden on Vegas’ second line, but Tortorella moved him around throughout the game. At one point, he moved Dorofeyev down to the third line with Tomas Hertl, before eventually bumping him all the way down to the fourth, checking line near the end of the game. Interestingly enough, that’s where Dorofeyev earned his best scoring chances of the series to that point, which was enough to give Tortorella the confidence to put him on the top line beside Eichel to begin Game 4.
The fit makes sense. Barbashev is great on the forecheck and at winning possession along the boards. Eichel is the Golden Knights’ best playmaker and hasn’t looked to shoot very often in these playoffs, so giving him the team’s best finisher is a natural fit. It didn’t take long for the move to pay off. They scored on their first shift of the game, with all three players factoring on the goal.
The trio didn’t last, though. Dorofeyev turned the puck over in the defensive zone, leading directly to Utah’s first goal, and spent a lot of the second period on the bench. He eventually found his way back onto Hertl’s line in the third period.
Schmaltz finds his game
As well as the Mammoth have played in this series, their top-line center hadn’t done much coming into Friday’s game. That changed in a big way, as Schmaltz was all around the front of the Vegas net and registered two massive points.
Schmaltz willed Utah onto the scoreboard midway through the second period, fighting his way through Vegas defenders to establish position next to the net. He pounced on a rebound, batted it into the net and started the comeback.
Less than two minutes into the third period, Schmaltz assisted on Keller’s goal to give Utah a 4-3 lead. He gave Utah a much-needed boost.
Goaltending troubles on both ends of the ice
Vejmelka had been playing really well for Utah through the first three games of the series, but his postseason save percentage plummeted below .900 after allowing five goals on 33 shots on Friday night.
The big Czech goalie made some big stops throughout the night, but just wasn’t as sharp as he had been prior to Game 4. It just appeared his timing was slightly off, as pucks that he had been absorbing were hitting his chest and bouncing perilously into the slot. Vejmelka was sliding around, outside of his posts more than usual for a sound positional goalie of his caliber.
That being said, Vejmelka stood on his head early in overtime. Mark Stone had a chance from point-blank range on the power play, and Vejmelka robbed him by kicking out the pad.
On the other end, Hart continues to struggle for the Golden Knights. Part of the reason Utah has matched or exceeded Vegas’ offense in this series without having nearly as much possession is Hart’s inability to come up with big saves.
A couple of Utah’s goals were strange bounces in front, but the Carcone goal came from outside the dots, with no traffic, and beat Hart’s glove hand clean. It’s not the first time the Mammoth have beaten Hart’s gloves in this series. It will be interesting to see how long Tortorella, who has expressed nothing but the strongest confidence in Hart, will stick with his former Flyers goalie with Adin Hill on the bench. Hill had an awful 2025-26 regular season, but he backstopped Vegas to the Cup in 2023 and has a .917 career save percentage in the playoffs.
This story will be updated.
