Acciari scores go-ahead goal in 3rd, Penguins hand Mammoth 4th straight loss

Noel Acciari scored the go-ahead goal at 8:03 of the third period, and the Pittsburgh Penguins rallied for a 4-3 victory against the Utah Mammoth at Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Saturday.

Acciari gave the Penguins a 4-3 lead after Parker Wotherspoon sent a shot on net from just above the left face-off circle. The puck popped into the air off Karel Vejmelka and dropped at the top of the crease, where Acciari tapped it in as he battled in front.

Anthony Mantha had a goal and an assist, and Bryan Rust and Tommy Novak also scored for the Penguins (33-18-15), who had lost five of six (1-3-2). Erik Karlsson, Egor Chinakhov and Wotherspoon each had two assists. Stuart Skinner made 26 saves.

“The guys responded,” Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse said. “You’re going to have off shifts. That’s part of hockey. ... Credit to the guys. They responded.”

Dylan Guenther scored twice, and Ian Cole also scored for the Mammoth (34-27-6), who have lost four straight (0-2-2). Vejmelka made 19 saves.

“We just need to make sure we keep our demons in check,” Utah coach Andre Tourigny said. “It (would) have been unfair to win today (with) the way we managed the game. And I believe we generated way more offense than them. At 5-on-5, we were the better team. It doesn’t matter, if you don’t manage the game the right way. It’s too good of a League. It’s not a League where you can gamble, and we gambled and we lost the game.”

Guenther gave the Mammoth an early lead with two goals in a 1:31 span in the first period.

He put Utah up 1-0 at 5:06, forcing Penguins forward Blake Lizotte to turn the puck over in the neutral zone and burying a low wrist shot from the right circle under Skinner's left pad.

Guenther scored his fifth goal in five games to make it 2-0 at 6:37 while on the power play. Mikhail Sergachev's one-timer from the blue line bounced off the end boards to Barrett Hayton, who played the puck into the crease past Skinner's left pad. Guenther crashed the net and Penguins defenseman Connor Clifton hit the puck in off Guenther's left skate as he attempted to clear the puck. The play was originally ruled no goal, but the call on the ice was overturned after video review determined the puck completely crossed the goal line.

“Learning’s important, but you don’t want it to bleed,” Guenther said. “You don’t want to get too emotional. If we get down 2-0 in the next game, you don’t want that to kind of snowball, I think it’s just the next shift. And being aware of the things that we have to fix, but making sure that it’s a clean slate going into every game.”

Mantha cut the deficit to 2-1 during a 5-on-3 power play at 14:48 of the second period with a snap shot from low in the right circle off the right post for his 25th of the season, tying his NHL career high.

Novak tied it 2-2 at 17:26. Wotherspoon's slap shot deflected off Mammoth forward Kailer Yamamoto in the slot to Novak, who went skate-to-stick to lift the puck over Vejmelka's blocker from low in the right circle.

Rust put Pittsburgh up 3-2 with a power-play goal at 1:24 of the third period. Chinakhov's pass from below the goal line deflected off Utah defenseman MacKenzie Weegar to Rickard Rakell in front. Rakell knocked the puck to Rust in the right circle, where he buried a snap shot to the short side.

“They came out hard,” Rust said. “We were getting outworked a little bit there and then I think we regrouped before the second period. I thought we were a whole lot better.”

Cole evened the score 3-3 at 4:17 with a wrist shot from the high slot past Skinner's blocker.

“I think we’ve been trying to make a concerted effort to stick with the game plan,” Cole said. “There were stretches of that game where we did a really good job sticking to it. And there were stretches where we kind of deviated from that and got away from it.”

Michael Carcone could have tied it after Acciari's goal on a breakaway at 17:30, but Skinner got enough of it with his glove to tip it off the crossbar.

“I think it really showed how resilient this group is,” Skinner said. “Going into the second, we just responded really well as a team. From there on in, it was a really good game.”

NOTES: Karlsson reached 916 points (206 goals, 710 assists), passing Bobby Orr (915 points; 270 goals, 645 assists) for the 12th-most by a defenseman in NHL history. ... Mantha extended his point streak to four games (four goals, two assists). ... Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby missed a 10th straight game with a lower-body injury sustained while playing for Team Canada at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. ... Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin served the final game of a five-game suspension for a slash to the face of Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin on March 5.