What Went Wrong: A Mammoth-Sized Blunder

Well, Salt Lake City, you got your first taste of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. You got your first wins, your first sliver of hope for something, and for the first time ever, you totally blew it. Congratulations, you are truly a hockey city.

With that said, however, you guys totally fucked this up.

Let's face it: nearly everything about the Utah Mammoth is odd. We all know the messy way they got that team; nearly everything related to the Arizona Coyotes was moved to Salt Lake City, with hopes that the Coyotes would be resurrected (hopes that are dashing very very fast). Last year, the team was nameless, they were the Utah Hockey Club for the 2024-25 season. The Mammoth name came this year, and they somehow made it due to a few of last year's West playoff teams falling off. They snagged the 1st Wild Card position and ended up facing the Vegas Golden Knights, losing the first game, but winning back-to-back to go up 2-1.

Game Four was a wild one. The Mammoth fell behind 3-0, but clawed back to take the lead, only for Vegas to tie it, and win it in OT. Game Five was the worst, though. Utah, IMO, had it. They had a late lead, but they gave up a game-tying goal in the final minute. That game needed double OT, and the fifth period saw Utah on the power play, but it was Vegas who scored on it. I'll be honest, when that goal was scored, that was it for Utah, and it showed in Game Six. No get up and go, the offense fizzled, a 5-1 loss on home ice.

The main thing that went wrong for the Mammoth: they didn't finish. They had third period leads in every game in the series except for Game Six. How in the hell do you have that but only win two games?! Utah should have won this series in five games, if not swept Vegas, but they stopped playing in the third period.

Five was the magic number on the Utah scoresheet; that was the lead point total and six players had that exact total. One of them was Lawson Crouse, who had three goals, one of them a game winner in this series. Dylan Guenther also had three goals in this series, but the player I really want to focus on is Clayton Keller. I remember being fascinated by Keller a few years back when he made it to the All-Star Game; he was the only Coyotes player on that Central Division squad. Keller, this year, was part of Team USA in this year's Olympics, so he has a Gold Medal this year. Regarding his numbers, Keller had a goal and four helpers in this series.

So the Utah Mammoth had their first taste of the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year. They had their moments, they had their positives, but they also had their first royal screw-up as well. Again, how do you have third period leads in five straight games and not win the series? That's absolutely mind-boggling. Will the Mammoth be back in the playoffs? I can see it happening at some point, but it won't be next year. I see at least one team, maybe two in the West, on the rise next year, and that's going to lead to the Mammoth going backwards next season. I don't think it will be a very bad and immense decline, but I somehow doubt that the Mammoth will have enough of the right stuff next year to make a return to the playoffs.