TORONTO — The Utah Mammoth are out to prove that the momentum the team is riding after just one month of the regular season is no fluke, both on the ice and off.
TORONTO — The Utah Mammoth are out to prove that the momentum the team is riding after just one month of the regular season is no fluke, both on the ice and off.
In its inaugural season in Salt Lake City after relocating from Arizona, Utah’s young core showed plenty of growth in finishing a respectable 38-31-13 for 89 points, including an impressive 6-2-2 to finish the 2024-25 season. While it still left them seven points behind the St. Louis Blues for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference, general manager Bill Armstrong’s team was trending in the right direction.
It’s a wave of improvement that the Mammoth have carried into this season, one the entire organization hopes will bring playoff hockey to the Delta Center. That particular quest for the postseason will continue when Utah visits the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday (7 p.m. ET; TVAS, SN, Utah16).
“We’re our biggest critics on the inside,” Armstrong said in a 1-on-1 with NHL.com. “Nobody has higher standards than we do. So we’ve always set high standards in our organization, and we’re not afraid to put them out there and challenge.
“We want to make the playoffs. That’s our goal. We feel like our team is good enough to take that step. The Central Division is hard. You’re going to need a little bit of luck. But usually, if your team works, you find that luck. So obviously, yeah, we want to do that.
“We were disappointed last year when we didn’t get in. It’s all about consistency and not getting too high, not too low, and see what we can do. The season is young yet, but we’re off to a good start.”
In so many different ways.
Consider how much has happened to the franchise in the past few months alone.
First off, it is now known as the Mammoth, not the Utah Hockey Club as it was called a season ago. Prior to their home opener against the Calgary Flames at the Delta Center on Oct. 15, they unveiled their new mascot Tusky, a 6-foot-5 mammoth that busted out of a block of ice.
Source: Utah News