<center>Colorado Mammoths vs Kelowna Knights
Game 61

It was too little, too late for the Kelowna Knights as Mikael Talo scored their only goal in the third frame,
allowing the Colorado Mammoths to best them by a score of 3-1.

Scoring Breakdown</center>
It certainly didn’t help the Knights to have back-up goalie Max Smith-Frey in the net tonight, but the break down of their offense against goaltender Jacob Andrews, as well as a couple ill-placed penalties and a penalty kill that was falling apart put the nails in the coffin for them. Let’s take a look at just how each of the goals tonight was scored.

Though the Knights outshot the Mammoths 12-6 in the first, neither team found the back of the net until 3:22 in the second. After a line change, Mia Landvik attempted to make a pass across the neutral zone to Dieter Dominique. Unfortunately, her pass was intercepted by Sludge and moved back the other way. Though the Knights made their way back into their own zone, some clever cycling of the puck by the Mammoths resulted in a pass from Sludge to William Goddard to Antoine Vietto, who shot the puck just past the glove of Smith-Frey for his first goal of the season.

Sludge and Goddard were back on the ice for the power play after Dominique took a minor for tripping at 6:14. The Knights’ penalty kill unit looked good initially, clearing the puck after a lost face-off, but the Mammoths took possession and dumped it into the Knights’ zone. Janis Mazmiesis got a stick on the puck in the corner, but Joey DeNino came up with a big hit, allowing for the puck to be retrieved by Goddard and passed to Sludge for the shot. Rookie Ty Justice blocked the shot, but Goddard and Sludge passed back and forth looking for a path past the Knights defence, with Sludge finally taking the shot and finding the back of the net.

The second period ended with a score of 2-0 Mammoths, and it remained that way until 12:36 in the third, when the Knights came blazing up the ice into the offensive zone. Mikael Talo sent the puck to Mikko Linna at the top of the circle, who passed it cross-ice to Anatoly Yanovich and was able to open himself up for the return pass and send it straight to Talo’s stick on the doorstep for the one-timer. The goal brought the game within one, giving the few Knights fans in the building hope for the comeback.

Alas, Landvik took a penalty for interference at 13:38, opening the door for the Mammoths power play to once again go to work. After a successful first half of the penalty kill, the Knights were unable to move the puck out of their zone, and the Mammoths battered Smith-Frey with shots on net until eventually a shot by Dave Mang was deflected into the net by DeNino.

<center>MVP</center>
While Mammoths defenceman Sludge was rightfully awarded first star of the night due to his goal, assist, and six total hits, the true MVP of the game was goalie Jacob Andrews. He held strong through the first period, stopping all 12 of the shots he saw and thus delivering a crushing blow to the Knights’ confidence in the beginning of the game. He went on to stop 25 of the Knights’ 26 shots on goal, good enough for a 0.962 save percentage. His record gained a much needed improvement to 3-7-3, and he was awarded second star of the game.

<center>Post-Game Interview with Mikael Talo</center>
Where do you feel it all started to go wrong tonight?

I don't think there was one particular moment. We could've made a recovery at any point. But we did take a lot of penalties early, and obviously when you do that you're not setting yourself up for a good game.

What were you thinking when you scored that third period goal?

"Get the puck to the back of the net." You always have a game clock ticking in your head, but you try to put it aside and just score. Trust your team, trust your training.

Do you think discipline is a problem for the Knights?

Not all the time, I don't think so. I would say that generally we're actually pretty clean. But you come in with some young guys, you know, tempers get high. Things happen. I think in this case what we didn't do is that we didn't really shake off the frustration of the first period before coming into the second, and compounded that when we didn't make the adjustments to our game plan that we needed to. So I think in general the discipline is okay, but growing the ability to quickly turn around a game that isn't going our way is something all of us need to develop.