The Mammoth can’t buy a win in general, but at home they’ve just had no luck in any part of their game. Today’s game against the Minnesota Swarm might have been the worst example of luck being against them all season long. Bad bounces, missed shots, amazing saves by the opposition goaltender and special teams trouble - both on their own power plays and on the penalty kills - went seemingly almost exclusively against the Mammoth tonight.
Colorado trailed at the half 6-3 but got a quick couple of goals to start the half and kept the game very close for the rest of it. Several bad breaks for Colorado on face-offs led to easy goals for the Swarm and a late too-many-men penalty for Colorado with under two minutes to play led to a Minnesota penalty shot which Chris Levis made a terrible attempt on, leading to a 10-9 Swarm score.
Both Connor Martin and Alex Gajic appeared to score late goals to make the game 10-10 but both were called off; Martin's for a shot clock violation and Gajic's for a crease violation. Although both calls were correct, Colorado could have used a lucky break from the referees. Gajic wound up looking to be the late hero when he scored a beautiful one with less than a minute remaining to give the Mammoth a trip to overtime.
In overtime it was over within 32 seconds as Chris Levis gave up a vintage terrible goal off a slow shot from the point. The Mammoth’s awful streak continues as they remain winless at home going back to the 2009 season. Although outclassed by Swarm goalkeeper Nick Patterson, Colorado goalkeeper Chris Levis had one of his best looking games of the season until allowing the overtime goal. He let in the occasional softy but leveraged that with some fantastic stops when the game was close in the third and fourth quarters. He wound up allowing 11 goals on 42 shots.
Alex Gajic's four goals were team leading. John Grant Jr. led the team in points with seven off of five assists. Attendance was lower than usual for the always league attendance leading Mammoth at Pepsi Center - probably a product of that awful home losing streak - but still an impressive 13,957.