Logan Cooley completes hat trick as Utah Mammoth beat Penguins in overtime at PPG Paints Arena

By Vancouver Television Sports Desk

PITTSBURGH — Logan Cooley completed a hat trick with one second remaining in the third period, lifting the Utah Mammoth to a 4-3 overtime win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday at PPG Paints Arena. The comeback began after Pittsburgh took control late in the third, setting up a final-second equalizer that forced overtime.

With the clock winding down, Cooley tied the game 3-3 by batting the puck out of the air with his backhand just before time expired. The tying goal came 24 seconds after Ben Kindel put the Penguins ahead 3-2, scoring on a backhand on a loose puck just outside the crease.

The NHL.com recap also noted that Cooley’s late goal capped a night in which the 19-year-old forward was returning from a vasovagal syncope episode that had followed the Penguins’ departure from Salt Lake City International Airport on Oct. 20. The announcement described the episode as a sudden drop in heart rate and blood pressure that reduces blood flow to the brain.

In overtime, Mikhail Sergachev scored the winner for Utah. He fired a wrist shot from the slot off a rebound of Barrett Hayton’s shot at 3:27 of the extra period, giving the Mammoth their ninth win of the season on the way to a 9-5-0 record.

Utah goaltender Sebastian Cossa made 31 saves as the Mammoth snapped a pattern of alternating wins and losses that had characterized their previous seven games, finishing that stretch at 4-3-0. Pittsburgh goalkeeper Arturs Silovs recorded 30 saves.

Cooley opened the scoring by netting his first goal of the game at 4:40 of the first period to give Utah a 1-0 lead. According to the game report, he intercepted a pass from Erik Karlsson, skated through the high slot to the left face-off circle, and finished with a wrist shot.

Cooley’s second goal made it 2-0 at 14:11 of the first period, his sixth of the season. He scored by splitting Karlsson and Pittsburgh defenseman Spencer Stastney, then racing to the net front and firing a wrist shot blocker side.

The Penguins responded in the second period when Karlsson cut the deficit to 2-1 at 8:38. He converted a wrist shot after stickhandling around Mammoth forward Nick Schmaltz, taking the shot from the inner edge of the right circle.

Pittsburgh then tied the game in the third period with Rickard Rakell and Cooley’s counterpart production. Rakell scored a short-handed goal at 10:59 to make it 2-2, collecting the puck in the neutral zone after it got past Cooley at the point, and finishing with a wrist shot from the right circle.

On the play that ultimately gave Pittsburgh the 3-2 lead before Cooley’s final-second equalizer, the recap credits Ben Kindel with the go-ahead goal. Kindel also had an assist. Karlsson and Rakell scored for Pittsburgh as Evgeni Malkin added two assists, while the Penguins finished 5-6-2 after extending a recent run in which they had won two straight following a previous four-game stretch that ended in losses.