‘Sometimes, you need to let it hurt’: Mammoth coach unhappy with his team in loss to Bruins

Utah Mammoth head coach André Tourigny expressed discontentment with the way his team lost to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday.

“I’m not happy about the way we reacted after the first period,” he said. “I think we were not physical enough — definitively — defensively and offensively. We did not win enough battles and we didn’t get below their goal line enough. We tried to play in front of them, and that’s why they shut us down.”

Mammoth fans watching felt the same way. The team commanded 90% of the scoring chances in the first period, but just 20% and 44% in the second and third, respectively, according to Natural Stat Trick’s data. And they managed just eight shots on net during that time.

It’s a quick turnaround for Wednesday’s game in Detroit — and the Mammoth have some work to do if they want to bounce back. But that doesn’t mean Tourigny will let his guys forget about this one.

“Sometimes, you need to let it hurt a little bit,” he said. “It’s not just the loss. It’s the way we lost it.”

Quick catchup

Boston Bruins: 4

Utah Mammoth: 1

Barrett Hayton scored the first (and to this point, only) goal in franchise history at TD Garden in Boston. The team suffered a 1-0 shutout loss there last year.

It came as he deflected a shot-pass past Jeremy Swayman on the power play. That’s two games in a row now that the Mammoth’s second power play unit has found the back of the net, despite its historical struggles.

But as one problem is solved, the next emerges.

Utah ran into penalty trouble. Morgan Geekie tied it up with a power play goal, and although the rest of Boston’s goals came at even strength, Utah couldn’t generate momentum because they spent a fifth of the game down a man.

Geekie scored again 23 seconds into the second period, and the Bruins would add another pair of goals before the sounding of the final buzzer.

Utah just couldn’t seem to find an answer.

“We had instances where details just slipped a little bit,” Hayton said. “... Those are the things that creep in, and if you don’t cut that off right away, it costs you — and it’s frustrating being here, talking about that right now."

Tidbits and takeaways

Was it defense, goaltending or both?

This isn’t an official mailbag article, but I’ll take one question that reflects what much of the fan base has been saying for some time now.

Daylen Bills on X asks, “Genuine question.. do we have a goalie problem? And when are we acknowledging the Sergi problem?”

Genuine question.. do we have a goalie problem? And when are we acknowledging the Sergi problem?

— Daylen Bills (@DaylenBills) December 17, 2025

It’s a fair question. You won’t win many games in which you give up four goals (Sunday’s comeback in Pittsburgh was an anomaly). So, who’s to blame: defense or goaltending?

Let’s go through each goal.

Geekie’s first goal, the one on the power play, was all Vítek Vaněček. Not only did he way over-commit to David Pastrňák, he also threw the textbook out the window and made a soccer goalkeeper-style dive in a desperation attempt at saving the puck.

I don’t profess to know everything about goaltending — it might be the most complicated position in sports — but I do know that pushing off in that situation gets you to your destination much quicker than jumping, and it puts much more of your body in front of the net.

3️⃣9️⃣ EVENS IT UP pic.twitter.com/qfs1CY5JoM

— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) December 17, 2025

Vaněček has this road hockey goalie style of play that must be inspired, in some way, by fellow Czech goaltender Dominik Hasek — one of the greatest goalies of all time. But Hasek retired nearly two decades ago, and the game has changed immensely since then. You can’t really get away with that now.

There’s not much blame to be given on Geekie’s second goal. Pastrňák sent a low-percentage bid toward the net, and Geekie happened to be there for the rebound.

Ian Cole was out of position leading up to Casey Mittelstadt’s goal. He began to pinch when the Bruins collected the puck in their zone, but then he backed out and got caught flat-footed. Dylan Guenther did a good job to cover for him, but you never want a forward defending on an odd-man rush.

The goalie is the last line of defense, and on this one, Vaněček was again over-committed. The culpability is shared between both Cole and Vaněček in this instance.

On Mikey Eyssimont’s goal, Olli Määttä tried to make a play at the point and lost the puck. He back-checked hard, but blew a tire in the process, giving Eyssimont all the time and space he needed to make a move.

These types of mistakes happen throughout the course of a game. They only become problems when the same player makes them over and over again. Unfortunately for Määttä, he has been on the wrong end of a lot of those mistakes this season — and he’s spent a number of games watching from the press box because of it.

So, to answer Daylen’s question, it’s a bit of both.

You need a backup goalie whom you can trust, and with just two wins in nine games (most of which coming against the “easier” opponents in back-to-back situations), Vaněček has not been that guy. And defensemen are, by nature, always put in compromising situations, but the guys who make differences are the ones who can erase the most mistakes.

To address the portion of the question regarding Mikhail Sergachev, I hesitate to place the blame squarely upon his shoulders.

Has Sergachev had some bad plays this season? Sure. So has every defenseman in the league. Has this been his best season? No. But he averages more minutes per game than all but 10 other guys in the entire NHL, and he still manages to erase far more mistakes than he creates, while also scoring at a decent rate.

If you were to take him out of the lineup, the team would struggle far more than it currently does.

Daniil But’s first NHL point streak

Alright, enough with the doom and gloom. Here are a couple of interesting storylines from this game, starting with Daniil But.

But is progressing quite nicely, both on and off the ice. He has assists in two straight games now, and has been one of several reasons for the second power play unit’s sudden success.

Hockey Stat Cards listed him as its most impactful Mammoth player on Tuesday, based on a number of offensive and defensive indicators, and he was their sixth-most efficient player in Pittsburgh on Sunday.

You could always see the confidence in his game — he’s never afraid to shoot and he always knows where to go to generate opportunities. Now, he’s also starting to show that confidence in the locker room.

During development camp this summer, he did not feel comfortable enough to speak to the media without an interpreter. At rookie camp in the fall, he agreed to speak because a Mammoth scout who speaks Russian was there just in case, though he didn’t end up needing to use him.

In mid-November, the Tucson Roadrunners proposed that I speak to members of the coaching and management staff about him, rather than talking to him directly, because, again, he wasn’t confident in his English.

He did interviews without an interpreter when he first got called up to the NHL, but he still seemed reluctant. However, the last time I interviewed him, Dec. 8, he seemed more than happy to talk — an ear-to-ear smile graced his face the entire time, and he even initiated a fist bump as we parted ways.

It’s not that his English is miles ahead of where it was a few months ago (though it is incrementally improving), it’s that he feels more comfortable. He jokes around with his teammates more. He knows what’s going on.

That has all translated into his on-ice game.

Where did Morgan Geekie come from?

Most people would use a time machine to go back to the early 2010s to buy Bitcoin at its low point. I’d use it to go back to the early 2020s to place a futures bet on Geekie eventually winning an NHL scoring title.

Geekie was scratched for more games than he played with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2021. One expansion draft and two contracts later, he’s scoring at a 58-goal pace.

“He wants to be the guy,” Bruins head coach Marco Sturm said of Morgan Geekie in his Nov. 29 postgame interview. “And he knows it, too, that he can do it.”

Mammoth fans might recognize the Geekie surname for Morgan’s younger brother, Conor Geekie, whom Utah traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Sergachev deal. At the time, Conor was expected to be the NHL superstar. He still has runway to achieve that, but Morgan will have far more bragging rights at Christmas dinner this year.

Goal of the game

Barrett Hayton’s power play goal

No surprise here, I hope.

In all seriousness, Utah needed to see more out of its second power play unit, and they’re starting to deliver. Was it a flashy goal? No. Was it an important goal? Absolutely.

Barrett Hayton opens up scoring in Boston!

🚨1-0, Mammoth. pic.twitter.com/Sx94JBHveO

— Utah Mammoth (@utahmammoth) December 17, 2025