Golden Knights build on late-season success under coach John Tortorella in playoffs

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — John Tortorella and the Vegas Golden Knights are off to the second round of the NHL playoffs after pushing aside the pesky Utah Mammoth.

Vegas ground out three straight victories to finish off the Mammoth, winning 5-1 on Friday night in Game 6 after consecutive overtime wins. Vegas overcame third-period deficits in its first three victories.

After Tortorella took over as coach from the fired Bruce Cassidy, the Golden Knights closed the regular season 7-0-1. They went from a team struggling to stay in the playoff picture to winning a division title for the fifth time in nine seasons.

Depth, confidence and experience helped Vegas make winning plays to close out tight games as the series progressed.

Mitch Marner and fellow forward Brett Howden specifically answered the bell with big plays. Howden had four goals in the series, and Marner had two goals and five assists.

“When you roll four lines, it doesn’t matter too much about where the faceoff is,” Golden Knights captain Mark Stone said. “You can just kind of put whoever out on the ice. But it’s always a new team every year. You always find out who you are in the first round.”

Utah’s speed forced the Golden Knights to get creative, and offered good preparation for what Vegas can expect to face in a second-round series against the Anaheim Ducks.

“This is a team that came at you with a lot of speed and skill,” Marner said. “They made us work throughout that neutral zone to really try and slow them down and shut down some of their offense.”

In particular, the Golden Knights excelled at denying Utah on the power play. The Mammoth went just 1 of 16 on the man advantage in the series.

Howden had two short-handed goals, the second in OT in Game 5.

“Johnny Stevens, our coach who runs that, had a really good game plan for them,” Tortorella said. “Blocked some shots. Carter (Hart) made some key saves all through this series. (Utah) gained momentum off of it, but we stayed with it.”

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The headline of this story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Tortorella.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl