Knights' offense stalls in 4-2 loss to Mammoth in Game 3

And once the Mammoth broke through, MacKenzie Weegar did the honors with just over seven minutes left in the first period, it seemed to deflate the Knights. And when Dylan Guenther scored on a Utah power play blasting a one-timer from inside the right circle past Carter Hart, things got real dicey for Vegas.

Yes, the Knights have managed to overcome deficits all season. They’ve been a really good third-period team. But after Lawson Crouse’s two second-period goals put the Mammoth up 4-0, well, any notion of a comeback for the ages was quickly dismissed.

Jack Eichel knocked home the rebound of Ivan Barbashev’s to spoil Vejmelka’s shutout bid with 6:39 left in the second to give Vegas a glimmer of hope. They got as close as 4-2 late but now they’ll look to regroup and try and get the series even on Monday before returning to T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday for Game 5.

“I truly believe that if you do things the right way, you’re going to be rewarded,” said Nic Dowd, who scored the other Vegas goal with 3:08 remaining. “I think that’s true in life and in hockey.”

Eichel said with a veteran group, there’s no need to panic at this point.

“It’;s why it’s a seven-game series,” he said. “Guys have been there. We were down 2-1 last year (to Minnesota) and came back to win

“I thought we played a good game. It was a bit of a weird one. We didn’t give up a ton. We’ve got to find a way to score as a group but I thought there were lot of positves.”

Does Tortorella change up his lines? Does he put Adin Hill in net after Hart struggled Friday? Might Ben Hutton or Brandon Saad draw into the lineup?

Don’t look for a change in net at this point.

“I know Carter and he wants to work through it,” Tortortella said of Hart. I have full faith in him. There was no thought of taking him out.”

It’s hard to imagine his keeping the status quo. The Knights have been outplayed by Utah the last two games and as Pavel Dorofeyev and Tomas Hertl remain cold offensively and the only line consistently producing much offense is Eichel, Barbashev and Mark Stone, Tortortella’s options may be somewhat limited.

He’s been around this team long enough by now to know what works and what doesn’t. He knows who he can rely upon and who he can’t trust.  

But these next 48 hours may well determine the season. And while there’s some truth to what Tortorella and his players said after Game 3, the fact remains they trail Utah in the series and it’s up to the Knights to turn things around before it’s too late.

“We need to get some guys untracked,” Tortorella said without being specific as to who. But you can probably figure it out who he’s referring to. “I want us to defend the proper way. We do that, the offense will come.

“We’ll have a couple of days to prepare. We need to get a game out of this building.”