Vegas Golden Knights center Jack Eichel (9) shoots into an open net while four Utah Mammoth defensemen and a goaltender look on at the Delta Center on Thu Nov 20, 2025 (AP News photo)

Utah snaps overtime loss streak with regulation loss to the Vegas Golden Knights

By Tom Walker

SALT LAKE CITY–It took 18 games of the 2025-2026 season for the Utah Mammoth to suffer its first overtime loss, 3-2 against the New York Islanders last week at home. The Mammoth were less than five seconds away from victory in Anaheim on Monday when Troy Terry found the back of the net to force overtime, and Olen Zellweger scored in overtime for a 3-2 Ducks win.

The next day in San Jose, Macklin Celebrini scored twice in the first six minutes to put Utah in a hole which JJ Peterka dug them out of with two goals of his own in the third period. With the Mammoth on the penalty kill due to a too many men on the ice penalty,

Celebrini would celebrate a game-winning hat trick to hand the Mammoth its third consecutive 3-2 overtime loss. It was Utah’s 8th loss in the past ten games, with both victories coming at the expense of the Buffalo Sabres home and away.

Utah (10-7-3) returned to Delta Center on Thursday to open a four-game homestand against the Vegas Golden Knights (9-4-6). The first period saw a lot of action but no scoring as Akira Schmid turned away all 9 Mammoth shots while Karel Vejmelka kept Vegas off the scoreboard stopping all seven of their attempts.

Jack Eichel opened the scoring for the Golden Knights at 3:09 of an action packed second period with his 9th goal of the season, assisted by Pavel Dorofeyev and Shea Theodore, just moments after the conclusion of a full two-minute 4-on-4 which felt more like a Vegas power play as the Golden Knights offense swarmed the Utah net for nearly its entirety.

19 seconds later, Ben Hutton netted his second of the year, assisted by Cole Reinhardt, to give the Vegas a 2-0 lead. At 6:16 of the period both teams dropped their gloves in a brawl in front of the Utah net which involved everyone but the goalies.

When the dust settled, Reinhard and Kaedan Karczak were charged with roughing penalties for the Golden Knights, while Mikhail Sergachev and Logan Cooley each received roughing penalties for the Mammoth.

Cooley was assessed two separate roughing penalties in the scrum, but got his money’s worth at the expense of Karczak’s face. 11 seconds later the Mammoth went on the power play when Braeden Bowman was whistled for interference against Ian Cole, and eleven seconds into the man advantage Utah’s Nate Schmidt cut the deficit in half with his first Mammoth goal, assisted by Ian Cole and Clayton Keller. At 16:51 Jack Eichel regained the two-goal Vegas lead with his tenth of the season, assisted by Bowman and Theodore.

Less than a minute into the third period, Braeden Bowman tipped in a shot by Jack Eichel for his 3rd goal of the season, padding the Vegas lead at 4-1 where it would remain until the final buzzer. Throughout the period Utah came across as outmatched on both ends of the ice.

Every flash of offensive opportunity fizzled with broken up passes and routine stops by Akira Schmid. The Mammoth squad which dazzled during its seventh-game winning streak, impressing to the point of reaching second on The Athletic’s Power Rankings, have now dropped 9 of their last 11 while falling to sixth place in the Central Division standings.

Captain Clayton Keller expressed frustration in the losing locker room. “I think it was a pretty emotional game. Maybe we didn’t get some calls that we should have, or there were some weird ones, but that’s part of the game, and those are things that we have to be able to tune out and get back to our game quickly. Whether it goes our way or doesn’t. So I think that’s something that we can take from the game for sure.” Keller continued, “You know that there’s going to be adversity. It’s a long season, it’s hard, it’s the best league in the world and I think our group has continued to stay motivated and confident, while still going through tough stretches. When there’s something that we want to attack and get better at, we address it and respond right away. So tomorrow we will have a good practice. We’ll break down the game tonight, talk about it, figure out how we can be better. That’s the good thing about, sometimes losing is that’s when you learn the most about your team and yourself and it makes it even that much better when things do go your way and you kind of get out of it.”

Utah Mammoth Head Coach André Tourigny opened his post-game remarks by saying, “I obviously did not like the way we responded to the emotion of the game. We had a good first period, then we arrived in the second, and stuff happened to Stenny (Kevin Stenlund). I didn’t like the way we reacted to it at first. We got emotional and got out of our game. They took over, and it was difficult for us to get back at it. That was disappointing. We got a push in the third, but it’s clear we cannot have five-minute, two-minute, a few shifts where we lose our focus like that, and that costs us dearly.” Tourigny added, “Adversity and frustration are part of the game. We cannot lose our focus like that because of a call, a goal, a hit, or whatever. We can’t lose our temper and start running around. Vegas is a good team, and as soon as we started to run around, they made us pay for it. We need to learn from that. There are other things we need to do better in our 5-on-5 games. We need to play way faster, move the puck faster, and be more predictable with each other. It comes from a good place, from the player; they want to do more and do great. But, often less is more. We need to make sure we play with a lot of pace and play fast. That means moving the puck, moving the puck into space, and skating, support, and those kinds of things. We will address that, but the emotion thing is a big deal.”

Utah (10-8-3) will attempt to turn things around Saturday against the New York Rangers (10-10-2) who are currently in last place in the Metropolitan Division.