You can be doing a lot of things in Las Vegas on Wednesday evening. Go gambling, eat some good food, and watch a show. Yet no one in the city will be thinking of that, as all eyes will be on T-Mobile Arena. It’s fight night.
For the first time since late April, when Brett Howden scored the double-overtime winning goal in Game 5, giving the Vegas Golden Knights a 3-2 lead in the first round, the Utah Mammoth will return to Sin City, where the beginning of the end of their 2025-26 season happened.
After the dramatic Game 5 victory, the Golden Knights beat the Mammoth 5-1 in Game 6 in Salt Lake City to punch their tickets to Round 2. The Golden Knights went on to be within just two games of the Stanley Cup. Meanwhile, the Mammoth players went home, bitter and frustrated that they still weren’t playing. That feeling, six months later, still lingers a bit.
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“We know the task at hand, but we just got to take it one game at a time,” Lawson Crouse said. “It’s a great opportunity to get a little redemption. I’d say everyone knows what happened, but just looking forward to it.”
It’s clear that the Mammoth’s rivalry with the Golden Knights is the biggest one they currently have. While battles between the Minnesota Wild and the Colorado Avalanche have heated up, it’s obvious the relationship with the Golden Knights is special. Once you fight a team in the playoffs, especially if it’s as intense as the series was between these two, it’s just different.
For people who don’t remember, the first-round series in the last playoffs between these two was close until Game 6. The first five games were decided by at most two goals. Game 4 and Game 5 both went into overtime. There were crazy hits and viral moments, headlined by the Logan Cooley and Nic Dowd spat in Game 1. The Mammoth are expecting something like that physicality and bad blood to resurface on Wednesday night.
“I’m sure there’ll be some stuff, but we just have to keep our emotions in check and keep things between the whistles and be smart and disciplined,” O’Brien said.
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Yet, there was a sense of calmness on Wednesday morning, hours ahead of the rematch. The Mammoth held an optional practice, with smiles and chirping going around the team.
This is a different Mammoth team than the one the Golden Knights faced back in April and May. The team added quite a few new faces, like Anders Lee, Vincent Trocheck, Andrew Peeke, and Sebastian Cossa, who is projected to start on Wednesday. Former faces who played a big role in the series, like Ian Cole, are gone.
Even players like Kailer Yamamoto, who led the Mammoth in postseason scoring, probably won’t play on Wednesday. The team is pretty banged up, with John Marino, Nate Schmidt, Dylan Guenther, and Yamamoto all injured. Coming off a long, rough five-game road trip, the Mammoth needed a break. Luckily, going into this game, they did have three days off, some much-needed time away from playing games.
“It was huge,” head coach André Tourigny said. “At the end of the trip, I think everybody was tired. I like the way our guys fought and everything. But mentally, physically, we were a little bit drained. The way we managed it with two short practices, with a lot of energy, a lot of pace, a lot of smiles. I think that was good. We all feel good today. Talk to the players, talk to myself, the coaches. We feel energized.”
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However, it’s due to the departures, the injuries, and the new faces that surround the Mammoth that make Tourigny think there won’t be a lot of spillover from the playoffs. However, like everyone else, the longtime head coach wouldn’t mind seeing some of that drama, physicality, and competitiveness return from last spring.
“I would not mind,” Tourigny said. “We will play a hard game. I think they will play a hard game. It’s a good team. We will go at each other. We need the two points. They need the two points. I think there will be a lot of pride. But normally, those things when you expect something, there’s nothing that happens, and when you don’t expect it, something is happening. We’ll be watching.”
A lot of people will be watching, as the game will be nationally televised on TNT. The anticipation is high. Will someone like O’Brien or Jack McBain make a massive physical play early on to continue that rivalry we saw in the postseason, or will this turn out to be a mild game, letting down the fans who will be tuned in to this one? Don’t be disappointed if this isn’t the all-out brawl it’s hyped up to be.
Regardless of how many fights, goals, and saves there are on Wednesday, there’s no doubt that by the end of the 60 minutes, these two teams will be reminded that they are two of the best teams in the Western Conference for a reason. The second game in early December between them could be more of a return to the level we saw in the playoffs, depending on what happens in this one.
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At the end of the day, as Tourigny said, there are two points on the line. That is the Mammoth’s priority. Coming out early and stunning the energetic crowd in Las Vegas is the goal.
“Coming out flying with pace, that’s our strength,” O’Brien said. “We just need to fly and skate, and that’s when we have success. It’s when we’re at our best.”
Wednesday might be a different battle than most expect, with new faces on both teams and some familiar faces gone. It should be a very good hockey game nevertheless. Don’t worry, though. Knowing these two teams, they’re ready to rumble. No matter what their rosters look like, there should be some fireworks and flaring tempers.
