In the wake of Saturday’s stunning, sudden-death overtime loss that ended its season and its defense of the National Lacrosse League championship, the Colorado Mammoth lacked a staple of the 2006 title run – an efficient power play.
Although expansion cost the Mammoth two key members of the power play – Chris Gill (17 power-play goals last season) and Dan Stroup (12) – the squad appeared to compensate. As rookie Jamie Shewchuk racked up 13 power-play goals, the Mammoth ran off to a 10-1 start en route to a West Division-leading 12-4 record.
Yet a power play that converted at a 50.4 percent rate, second-best in the NLL through 14 of the 16 regular-season games, fell apart in the last two games of the season – a 13-12 win over San Jose and an 11-10 loss to San Jose – as well as in Saturday’s 15-14 playoff loss to San Jose.
In those three games against the Stealth’s NLL-leading penalty-killing unit, Colorado was 10-for-32 – 31.2 percent.
While San Jose deserves some credit, Mammoth players often held the ball too long. Usually, two quick passes can move the goaltender, allowing the player catching the second pass to have an open net target, but that was not the case for Colorado.
“The power play let the whole team down,” said all-star forward Gavin Prout, the point man on the power play.
As Prout kept the ball moving in an effort to work it inside, he rarely unleashed his perimeter shot, attempting only four shots and scoring just one goal in the West Division semifinal loss.
Meanwhile, Brian Langtry, the franchise postseason goal- scoring leader, scored three goals against the Stealth, but took the lion’s share of the shots (20-of-61). Season goal-scoring leader Dan Carey, who entered the playoffs in a slump (one goal in the last four games) took 12 shots and scored twice.
In contrast, San Jose converted at an amazing 77.2 percent rate (17-of-22) in the three games.
The Mammoth defense missed all-star John Gallant, whose injured hamstring kept him out of Saturday’s loss and five of the last six regular-season games. Assistant captain Pat Coyle was slowed by a leg injury, and touted midseason acquisition Jim Moss was a healthy scratch for the playoff game.
