Mammoth rebuilding project puts Utah in playoffs in team's second season since moving from Arizona
Utah's rebuilding process began in the Arizona desert, where the team was known as the Coyotes and progress was incremental. In the first year after a move to Salt Lake City, the team became the Utah Hockey Club and took a bigger step, winning eight more games than the previous season to inch closer to the NHL playoffs. Now known as the Mammoth, the young players who served as the rebuild foundation have developed into a skilled, cohesive unit that's reached the postseason for the first time in six years.
“The guys are getting older, more mature, and they learn from what happens," Mammoth coach André Tourigny said after his team's playoff-clinching 4-1 win over Nashville on Thursday night. "The GM does a great job to improve the team every year. It’s easy now to look back and see we started from scratch.
It’s a privilege when you start the process where you start. It’s not every time you have that much runway, so I feel fortunate and try to keep improving every year for the next. ” The win over Nashville put Utah (42-30-6) in the top Western Conference playoff wild-card spot, six points ahead of the Predators.
The Mammoth are the third team in 45 years to make the playoffs in the first two seasons as a franchise — with Vegas and Seattle — but did it with a foundation of players who played in Arizona before the team moved. The Mammoth already have four more wins than last season and their 90 points is two more than last season, which had been highest since 2013-14. Utah has won five straight, eight of its last 11 and are 21-14-3 at home.
That puts the Mammoth in the postseason for the first time since the 2020 NHL playoff bubble — then as the Coyotes — and second since reaching the 2012 Western Conference finals. “It’s a step in the right direction,” Utah captain and leading scorer Clayton Keller said. “A lot of us haven’t played in the playoffs in a while and we want to taste that.