There were pretty much two possibilities for this game going into it. Either the Colorado Mammoth were going to go into Xcel Energy Center pumped up and looking for a win to finish a surprisingly good season off with, or they were going to lay back, score a goal when they could, rest their guys a bit and most likely lose by a large margin to the Minnesota Swarm.
By the somewhat close final score of 12-8 it’s not completely obvious which one they did, but only because of a somewhat late ‘rally’ by the slow-playing Mammoth which cut a large Swarm lead down a peg by the time the fourth quarter was over. Trust me, the Mammoth for 80 percent of this game weren’t exactly playing like they planned to win this one.
The Mammoth actually started strong tonight with the first goal of the game and a 4-2 lead built up by the time the second quarter started, but a ten goal in a row streak by the Swarm found Chris Levis on the bench and the Mammoth down 12-4 by the start of the fourth quarter.
The Mammoth wound up scoring four easy ones – even Connor Martin got a goal! – in the fourth quarter as the Swarm began basically celebrating their home field advantage 15 minutes before the game had actually ended. The score would stop there and both teams would walk away satisfied.
Colorado will face the Calgary Roughnecks in the playoffs.