The Colorado Mammoth couldn’t have dreamed up a better result for last night’s game. In their most lopsided victory against any team since they beat the Vancouver Stealth 20-9 back in January of 2015, the Mammoth beat the Vancouver Warriors 14-4 to sweep the weekend’s back-to-back.
In every facet of the game, the Colorado Mammoth had the upper hand tonight. From the onset, the home side dominated defensively with a surprisingly high energy level for a team on the second night of a home-and-home and moved the ball with incredible poise and fluidity that we haven’t seen from this team for an entire game all year.
Kyle Killen and Eli McLaughlin led the way offensively and both set career-highs. Killen scored a personal-best five goals (and nearly completed his sock trick in the fourth quarter) while McLaughlin obliterated his career-high for points with 12 tonight – his previous high was seven. Ryan Lee added four assists, Cory Vitarelli had two goals and an assist and the energy bunny Jeff Wittig added a goal and two more assists to his budding tally.
Yet, even though it must be noted that this was the best offensive output for the Mammoth in the 2018/19 campaign, the player of the night was Mammoth backup goaltender Steve Fryer. It was expected that Fryer would fill in for Dillon Ward who was a stone wall himself last night in Vancouver, but no one could’ve foreseen the night he had.
Fryer set career-highs with 49 saves and only four goals allowed. He had started a game last year in similar circumstances where he had 45 saves and allowed seven goals in a start (both were previous career-highs). He wasn’t forced to make too many difficult saves as it seemed the Warriors couldn’t find their offence really at any point all night, but in nearly every situation he was asked to make a stop, Fryer stepped up.
This win had incredibly important implications. The Mammoth now hold a two-game lead over the Warriors with four games to play for both West Division clubs. They also took the season-series which adds another advantage for the Mammoth.
With two games against the Saskatchewan Rush left on their schedule, the Mammoth have a chance to move above the fourth West Division seed they currently hold. The Rush, and for that matter, the Calgary Roughnecks both sit just one game ahead of the Mammoth for the third and second seeds respectively.
The way the Mammoth are playing over their last three games, no team should want to face this team. They are not only exuding playoff quality, but flashes of championship quality. The Mammoth play their next game against the aforementioned Rush on April 6th inside the Pepsi Center at 9:00 PM EST.
