The ‘3 seasons’ of the Utah Mammoth’s power play
A better power play could have produced a much different result in the Mammoth’s first playoff series. Here’s why it lacked.
Utah Mammoth right wing Clayton Keller (9) shoots during overtime of Game 4 of a first-round NHL Stanley Cup playoff series against the Vegas Golden Knights at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Monday, April 27, 2026. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News The Utah Mammoth’s season ended the same way it began: 1 for 16 on the power play . They had a stretch in between — 27 games, to be exact — during which the power play was the second-best in the NHL, which helped them make the playoffs.
But as soon as they arrived in Las Vegas for Game 1 of the postseason, the group went flat. Five games into the regular season, a reporter asked Mammoth head coach André Tourigny about the 1 for 16 power play. His response was that regardless of whether the puck was going in, the group was getting good looks.
It was only a matter of time, he opined. That proved to be true in the regular season. The Mammoth scored a 5-on-3 goal that night, followed by 5-on-4 goals in each of the next five games.
But in the playoffs, time is not guaranteed — and due, in large part, to the ineffectiveness of the power play, the Mammoth ran out of it. In his exit interview after the season, Tourigny described the power play as having had “three seasons” within the season. “It’s easy to say we need to be more direct (and) we need to put pucks to the net, which is all true.
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