A standing-room-only crowd of 18,001 fans dressed for Black Out Night, the new black dasher boards contrasted sharply with the white ball and the Colorado Mammoth appeared intimidating in the team’s new black uniforms.
Yet the Mammoth’s offense was as anemic as ever Saturday night in the team’s 12-8 loss to San Jose at the Pepsi Center.
“I feel bad,” said Colorado forward Brian Langtry. “We got all dressed up, all the fans came, it was a nice event and we didn’t show up.”
A Mammoth team atop the National Lacrosse League just a few games ago lost for the third consecutive time, dropping to 5-3 and into a tie for first place in the Western Division with San Jose (5-3).
“When we were winning, everything was fine,” said Langtry who blamed himself for part of the offensive woes. Langtry, along with all-stars Gavin Prout and Dan Carey, combined for three goals on 29 shots.
Jason Wulder was the only Mammoth player to find the net twice against Stealth goaltender Anthony Cosmo. Dropped passes on transition, excessive penalties, poor ball and player movement on the power play all contributed to an offense that as managed just 17 goals combined the past two games.
“It seemed we had enough quality chances,” Langtry said. “It is very frustrating. There’s a strange feeling when you’re losing. There’s a little bit of doubt about coming back. But I’m not speaking for everybody.
“We made a lot of untimely bad plays, shots I took that I shouldn’t have taken, running a play where we don’t have the right personnel or going to the net on one side when the play is on the other side. We’re making too many mistakes. We played hard, but we didn’t play smart.”
First-year coach Bob McMahon noted that his team improved over last week’s 12-9 loss at Calgary when it was “awful.”
“I’m not going to start sitting veterans to send messages and stuff like that,” McMahon said. “I have every confidence we can play well next week and win.”
Colorado led 2-1 on a quarter-ending buzzer beater by Prout off a 120-foot outlet pass from goalie Gee Nash.
After a couple ties, San Jose took the lead for good, using a 5-0 run for an 8-4 advantage. Nash was pulled for Chris Levis after Colorado fell behind 10-5. Among the disappointments was a four-shot possession in which the Mammoth came up empty.
San Jose 1 5 4 2 — 12
Colorado 2 2 1 3 — 8
Scoring — San Jose, Wiles 3-4-7 (goals-assists-total), Resetarits 3-0-3, Doyle 2-6-8, Zywicki 2-5-7, Johnson 2-0-2, Sedgwick 0-5-5, Guindon 0-1-1, Martin 0-1-1, Holmes 0-1-1. Colorado, Wulder 2-1-3, Shewchuk 1-3-4, Langtry 1-2-3, Prout 1-2-3, Carey 1-1-2, Prossner 1-1-2, Nash 0-1-1. Saves — SJ, Cosmo 40; Colorado, Nash 19, Levis 11.
