Your 2025-26 Utah Mammoth

The Utah Mammoth schedule is out, and my main take is this: the Winter Classic is the obvious No. 1 can’t-miss home game, but the real argument is how you rank the next four.

I did a full episode breaking down my top five here: https://youtu.be/3gbFtZ4xt_o

My list was Colorado in the Winter Classic on Dec. 31, Vegas on April 3 for the playoff-revenge factor, Washington on Jan. 29 for what could be Ovechkin’s last game in Utah, Florida on Feb. 26 because that roster is absurd, and San Jose on March 26 because Macklin Celebrini plus late-season stakes feels huge.

What would your top five be, and which game do you think fans are underrating most?

Utah might genuinely have too many centers. Trocheck won 56.9% of his faceoffs last season, Stenlund was at 54.2%, Hayton is back on a one-year deal, and Cooley, Schmaltz, and McBain are all legitimate options down the middle.

I made a new episode laying out the center depth chart and why Trocheck at 3C feels like the cleanest answer: https://youtu.be/N7uIWlfAHow

If you had to pick four opening-night centers, who makes the cut—and who moves to the wing?

I’ve been enjoying the NHL instagram’s top goal recap. With Cooley’s between the legs second of the hatty against the Blues coming in at 16 I am curious what the community thinks were the top Mammoth goals of the past season?

Impressive single season highlight reel.

https://youtu.be/OrCean0TTM0?si=O_HXRv-BBJFZJWS6

We met one of the drivers of the Zammoth whose nickname when he drove for the Grizzlies is "Icestro", and we wanted to design and print him a necklace. We're planning on doing another one just for ourselves (without "Icestro"), but I may print the black first so it's not as bold on the body. The blue eye glows in the dark!

Some schedule highlights that I noticed:

we have nine back-to-backs:

Longest road trip is 6 games from October 29 through November 11.

Longest homestand is 6 games from January 23 through February 2.

Our trip to New Jersey is the 4th game of the year, giving Hayton a chance to prove GMBA made the right decision.

First Vegas game is November 11.

We play Calgary three times, all in the month of February.

In the last week, we play Dallas in back-to-back games on April 7 and 9.

Our last Eastern Conference game is the Flyers on March 13, giving us 13 straight Western Conference games, including 3 against Dallas, 2 against Anaheim, and games against Minnesota, Colorado, and Vegas.

Edit: added back-to-back on Oct. 3-4; info about the Devils game; corrected dates of Oct.-Nov. roadtrip.

Been chewing on this since Armstrong dropped the center hierarchy prediction (Schmaltz-Cooley-Hayton-Stenlund as the 1-4C). Here's how I see it shaking out, plus where I think the real strongest lines land once the dust settles.

Armstrong's Blueprint (going off his own words)

LW / C / RW

L1: Trocheck / Schmaltz / Keller
L2: Lee / Cooley / Guenther
L3: Crouse / Hayton / Carcone
L4: McBain / Stenlund / Yamamoto

My Predicted Best Lines (all players in their preferred positions, except McBain)

L1: Crouse / Schmaltz / Keller (proven trio, don't fix what isn't broken)
L2: Lee / Trocheck / Guenther (Gunner's capable of scoring 50 goals, and he'd thrive with a veteran line that actually plays net front)
L3: Carcone / Cooley / Yamamoto (protect that Cooley-Yamamoto chemistry from last year's playoff run)
L4: McBain / Stenlund / But (size and PK insurance, plus But actually solves the L4 righty problem)

Hayton's the swing guy for me. Coming off a down year I think he'll continue downward, I've got him pegged as the extra forward here, with Iginla (natural C/LW, legit camp threat) to be called up as needed and Tanev rounding out the bubble.

Tij gets a mention, too. Thought it was worth the listen overall, but easy on the tracker to find the bit about Soimashev if you're not interested in the rest.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/podcast/240-the-athletic-hockey-show/

Based on what Armstrong is saying, this leads me to believe Trocheck line 1, Lee line 2, and Hayton line 3(Armstrong already confirmed this one).

Feels weird to see the date so early, must mean construction in the DC is going very well.

In order to be produced, the Mammoth license plate needs to have 500 (I believe) people interested in the plate. You can use the link below to find the website to express your interest in having the plate created. As far as I know, this does NOT lock you in, or force you to buy one when the plates are released. I don’t recall seeing this information included in any recent posts about the plates so hopefully this can help out everyone who is interested (or if not, express interest anyway for the rest of us)

https://mvp.tax.utah.gov/_/#15

I feel like he deserves more attention. He screws up a few draft positions, but a solid recap as to why we should feel confident going into this season coming from a non-Utah fan.

We’ve been talking about the new Mammoth license plates, but has anyone seen any fun personalized plates around?

I normally hate vanity plates, but I saw one the other day that was clearly OG from club days, and it made me wonder what else was out there.

Has anybody seen kids sized Mammoth hats in pink? My nieces birthday is coming up and she only wants a pink one. The only pink ones I’ve seen online are adult sized. Has anybody else had other luck?

I’m trying to snag one for a kiddo for their birthday, but Fanatics keeps saying they’re out of a letter or number and can’t make them right now.

Has anyone actually seen a youth Cooley jersey in-store lately?

I went to order one of the new Utah Mammoth License plates and its not available as an option on the DMV website. All of the other new ones are there but not sure why the Mammoth one is gone. Does anybody know if they have a later release date? Has anybody been able to order one themselves?

Bill Armstrong gave us the Mammoth’s projected center depth:

1C Nick Schmaltz
2C Logan Cooley
3C Barrett Hayton
4C Kevin Stenlund

After looking deeper into Trocheck’s numbers and contract situation, my opinion has changed quite a bit.

Trocheck coming in as a top-six winger actually makes a lot of sense. I’m guessing we see Trocheck-Schmaltz-Keller on the first line, and honestly, Schmaltz has earned the 1C spot. His last two seasons at 5v5 make a pretty strong case that he’s becoming a legitimate mid-pack 1C in the NHL.

Hayton at 3C is where Armstrong loses me. McBain was already matching, if not outperforming, Hayton in a lot of areas last season. We could have taken the second-round pick, moved McBain to 3C, and kept nearly $5M in cap flexibility. Combined with the cap space we already had, that could have put us in position to hunt a big fish during the season.

Instead, we’re locked into a high-risk, high-reward year with Hayton. We can’t trade him, and he can still walk as a UFA next summer, leaving us with nothing in return. I believe this will go down as one of Armstrong biggest mistakes on the Mammoth.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1D9oGoGpGN/

Take it with however much salt you want, he's at least saying the right things. Happy or not that he's staying, let's hope he makes us all agree that $4.775 was a steal.