Utah’s NHL playoff moment: Mammoth try to sever Vegas ties as a rivalry grows

SALT LAKE CITY — Hours before the first NHL playoff game in the Delta Center, Utah Mammoth fans were lined up outside — holding Vegas Golden Knights jerseys.

Hundreds waited, then tossed their Vegas jerseys into a wheeled laundry bin in exchange for a brand new Mammoth sweater. It was the latest marketing move by Mammoth owner Ryan Smith, who offered former Vegas fans the chance to swap gold-and-grey for blue-and-white ahead of Game 3.

They quickly ran out of jerseys.

The promotion offered a glimpse into a complex regional rivalry between two of the NHL’s three newest teams.

On the ice, this series has been emotional, physical and bloody. On Friday night, the Mammoth impressed in their first home playoff game, securing a convincing 4-2 victory and a 2-1 series lead. In the stands, competing fanbases have taken turns chanting taunts at each other.

Though these remain just the early signs of a burgeoning rivalry, the battle to win hockey fans across the state has been raging much longer. Of course, that’s why there were so many who had Golden Knights jerseys to trade on Friday. The Golden Knights were here first.

“My goal is to make our team the team of the Rockies,” Golden Knights owner Bill Foley said back in 2017.

The Golden Knights’ television broadcast map initially encompassed all of Utah, as well as Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. In their early years, the Golden Knights drove a motorcade through the Rocky Mountains before every season, making stops at Coeur d’Alene in Idaho, at Whitefish and Bozeman in Montana, and, notably, at Salt Lake City.

Players would hop off a logo-wrapped bus to play street hockey with kids. The team played preseason games against the Los Angeles Kings at the Delta Center in 2021 and 2022. Foley went as far as saying his team would be called the Vegas Golden Knights, but “we’re really going to be the Rocky Mountain Golden Knights.”

The team was relatively successful in its venture north. That is, until the Mammoth arrived.

“This was also kind of part of their market as they launched,” Smith said Friday. “That was part of the territory that we took. I mean, Vegas hockey was on TV here. I think you can see that with the jersey exchange today. As much as everyone thinks I’m just trolling them. It’s, you know, 50 percent (trolling), but it’s way more of a respect for how they’ve grown.”

Smith is familiar with Las Vegas. His wife and team co-owner, Ashley Smith, grew up there. The cities are a scenic, six-hour drive apart.

“I think the national landscape doesn’t understand the proximity, in so many different ways, of Utah and Las Vegas,” Smith said. “Growing up, Las Vegas is where our kids went for youth sports, and it’s where we went on the weekends. We’re just close.”

Smith said the Golden Knights’ success gave him confidence that NHL hockey would work in Utah.

“I understand the soul that hockey has brought to Vegas, in a really creative way,” he said. “Watching it succeed there gave me a ton of confidence that it would work here, given my background and the landscape and the way I think culturally, we’re way more similar than different, and that’s the part that most people don’t understand.”

While Smith admires how the Golden Knights have built their franchise and a fanbase in Las Vegas, he hopes to convert remaining Vegas fans in Utah.

“That’s part of their responsibility, is kind of sliding over and letting the new group come in, in a weird way, similar to the way someone slid over for them to come in,” he said. “I have nothing but respect.”

Friday’s playoff debut at the Delta Center was a big step. The buzz in and around the building was palpable. In the hours between the jersey swap and puck drop, fans partied around the rink. Faces were painted, woolly mammoth trunks were swinging as fans danced around the Zammoth. Military helicopters flew overhead.

The event marked the second anniversary of the day the franchise first welcomed then-Arizona Coyotes players and coaches to the city. They were greeted by children at the airport hangar, shown the city, and then visited a packed Delta Center.

“I don’t want to let repetition spoil the prayer, but that was a pretty amazing moment,” Smith said, recalling the welcome. “It was the greatest moment I’ve been to in sports, because it was literally a bet. I don’t think we had (documents) signed at that point. It was literally, ‘Hey, let’s see if Utah can show up for hockey,’ and Utah hasn’t not shown up every night since then.”

“This is a happy night,” he continued. “Let’s go make it special.”

The fans and the Mammoth players did just that.

The vibes from outside spilled into the arena. The sold-out crowd waved rally towels and roared as the players took the ice.

“Right when we came out, it was electric in the building,” Utah defenseman MacKenzie Weegar said. “It was loud, and I saw the towels going, introducing the starting lineups, and felt it after that. The first five minutes give you goosebumps. That’s sort of what it’s about. You know, feeling it with the fans and the players. Both sides appreciate each other so much. But we really felt that.”

“It was amazing,” added Utah captain Clayton Keller, who hadn’t played in a playoff game in six years. “We were so jacked up to play tonight. I think even just in warm-ups, it was an amazing feeling. You could tell that they were invested, and we’re super excited as well.”

The Mammoth may have been too excited in the first 10 minutes of the game. The Golden Knights jumped all over them, controlling the puck and firing a barrage of shots on net. Vegas held a commanding 10-1 edge in shots at one point, but Utah goalie Karel Vejmelka stood on his head to keep it scoreless.

Then Weegar opened the scoring with a slap shot that nearly blew the roof off the building.

“I was looking up in the stands after the first goal,” Lawson Crouse said. “Just seeing all of the rally towels going, and just feeling the energy and the passion from them …  the fans have been incredible ever since Day 1 when we showed up here, but it seemed like they took it to a whole new level tonight.”

Utah poured in three more consecutive goals, two by Crouse, and the building seemed to get louder each time. Players said they couldn’t hear Utah coach André Tourigny barking out the lines at certain points.

“That will be an adjustment,” Tourigny said, “Seriously, we had some confusion on the bench. The guys didn’t know what was up. For the people who know me, I can be pretty loud, but the crowd beat me.”

The Mammoth held on for the win, becoming the sixth team since 1990 to win its first home playoff game. It was a roaring success on a monumental night, and one of many since moving to Salt Lake City.

“What Ryan and Ashley have done, in terms of building a fanbase, making adjustments to this building, having a training facility, getting involved in the community with the assistance of fans, and figuring out Tusky and the Zammoth — everything they’ve done has exceeded our highest expectations,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Friday. “If you want to know how to write a textbook on how to start a franchise and a community from scratch, nobody is better than what Ryan and Ashley have been able to accomplish.”

The Mammoth are selling out the Delta Center on a nightly basis. They’ll be hosting the Colorado Avalanche for the 2026 Winter Classic at Rice Eccles Stadium on New Year’s Eve. They recently finished construction on their two-sheet Mammoth Ice Center, which will help grow the youth hockey scene.

“If you want to be inspired, just go at three o’clock on any day, and just sit outside our practice facility and watch parents come in with these kids,” Smith said. “(With) their hockey gear, and their hockey stick, and each one stops and almost has a moment with you, saying, ‘You do not understand what this has done for my family. Our kid being able to come in and say he’s found a tribe, or she’s found a tribe.’ It’s a real cool moment.”

In one sense, Utah is just continuing the Golden Knights’ push to prove the sport can thrive in non-traditional hockey markets. In another, there’s a clear rivalry developing.

“Part of the beauty of this series is that rivalries really get intense by playoff series,” Bettman said, “and so this worked out nicely.”