Controversial Call Stalls Utah Mammoth Momentum in 4-2 Loss to Ottawa Senators

Desperate for a win after losing four of its last five games, Utah Mammoth found itself down 2-3 against the Ottawa Senators entering the third period thanks to a last minute goal from Nick Schmaltz.

Though the previous period hadn’t been pretty, Utah was coming in with momentum and facing the struggling Senators goalie Leevi Meriläinen, who was entering the game allowing a league worse 4.57 goals per game. There was still plenty of time left for the Mammoth to make a play.

And with an early face-off win in Ottawa’s defensive zone, Utah looked like it had just done that, after Jack McBain remarkably scored a goal all while sitting down on the ice with his back facing the net.

Even after tripping over the goal post, McBain somehow tracked the puck down fast enough to hit the net. Thanks to McBain’s quick thinking, Utah had tied the game 3-3 and was building even more momentum.

Only one problem, though — the goal wouldn’t count.

After reviewing the play following an Ottawa Senators challenge, the referees noticed that as McBain was falling, he made slight contact with Meriläinen in the blue paint.

After the contact, Meriläinen was unable to track where the puck had gone, thinking John Marino had taken it toward the right goal. With both the contact and Meriläinen’s inability to locate the puck, the referees deemed that there was goalie interference and disallowed the goal, much to Utah’s surprise.

According to the rule regarding to goalie interference, “Goals should be disallowed only if: (1) an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal; or (2) an attacking player initiates intentional or deliberate contact with a goalkeeper, inside or outside of his goal crease.”

The referees clearly deemed that McBain had done enough to impair Meriläinen with the contact he made.

It could be argued that Meriläinen had plenty of time to reestablish himself despite the contact made. After all, McBain’s goal didn’t come immediately after the contact, he just happened to shoot the puck before Meriläinen coult track it. But clearly, the referees in this game didn’t see it that way.

A disallowed goal is always a tough break, but still, Utah was only down one goal and it had a whole third period still left to play.

But it was clear that the energy had shifted to Ottawa’s favor. Even after stopping a sudden burst of shots from the Senators, Utah would catch another bad break after Michael Amadio amazingly hit the puck perfectly into the net.

What made the play so remarkable was that Amadio was able to perfectly hit teammate Thomas Chabot’s shot midair with his stick. He not only cut at the perfect time, but he also held his stick in the perfect spot for a deflection. Without Amadio, the shot likely would have gone wide right and Ottawa would have only been up one goal still.

After that, the Utah Mammoth looked like it lost any momentum it had remaining. Though Ottawa wouldn’t score again, Utah was making too many uncharacteristic mistakes to mount a comeback. The team simply couldn’t get past the disallowed goal and Amadio’s goal.

“We need that drive, that energy,” said Nick Schmaltz. “We can come back, no matter how many we’re down, one, two, doesn’t matter. We got to want it, got to want the puck.”

Now having lost five of its last six games, Utah has a lot to fix if it wants to stop this bad stretch — starting with eliminating the defensive mistakes that led to some easy Ottawa goals.

The team has to be encouraged to see both Schmaltz and Clayton Keller make great individual plays to score goals, but Utah can’t get in the habit of relying solely on individual plays. It certainly won’t be able to start scoring on the power play through individual effort alone, either.

With its next two games back at home, the Mammoth will look to break its losing streak in front of its home fans, starting Wednesday, Nov. 12, against the Buffalo Sabres.

Source: Utah News