Just the Facts
- The Time: 7pm EST
- The Place: Delta Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
- Place to Watch: NESN, NHL Network, Utah-16, TVAS, SportsNet 360, ESPN+
- Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub
Know Your Enemy
- The Mammoth are 3-2-0, and are 4th in the Central Division; tied with the St. Louis Blues.
- Nick Schmaltz has once again taken up the mantle of points-getter on the Mammoth, though a recent trip to San Jose juiced that quite a bit. He’s got 7 points in 5 games and leads the team in scoring with 3 goals.
- Once again the Mammoth place their faith in Karel Vejmelka. He’s largely rewarded them so far, with a .912 SV% and a 3-1-0 record.
Game Preview
I’ve been very interested in this Mammoth team for a minute now. Maybe not in a “adopted western team” way, but more like the way you watch an insect wander around an enclosure.
Last year, they were one
of the most impactful teams at 5v5 and yet didn’t make the playoffs, and that has followed them into 2025-26. They are good at getting unblocked shots to the net, and arguably even better at creating quality shots for themselves. Are they perfect? Hell no; they do not attack the middle of the ice almost as a matter of principle at even strength, nearly the entirety of their defense pairings are hot dog water and early returns on their offseason suggest that JJ Peterka will remain the highlight, as just about everybody else they got has been kind of bad. But they’re just good enough in a weird Western Conference that I could see a couple of sell-offs early allowing them to cement their position as 1st wildcard team for a good long while. A lot of what I see here says they probably won’t make it…but part of me wonders if they could.
Meanwhile, Boston got as hard a wakeup call as anyone can give this team in the form of the Colorado Avalanche last night, and the less said about this, the better! What it proved is that while Marco Sturm has definitely figured out a way to get these guys to give a s#!t, this is still very much a work in progress roster construction and against good teams, you can feel the gulf in talent down in your bones. Look no further than a Mikey Eyssimont ending up in the top 6 by some trick of the mind. You can only bring up how your grinders were your best players so often when like 75% of your roster could qualify for that label.
Boston would like to finish up this little western road trip with their dignity intact, so hopefully they can just take a breath, bury the game tape from yesterday out in the salt flats, and move on to winning tonight.
We’ll see you there.
