St Louis Blues left Ross Johnston (right) knocks the helmet off Utah Mammoth center Liam O’Brien (38) in the first period at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Thu Nov 12, 2026 (AP News photo)
Utah Shootout Streak Snapped At 105 In 1-0 Dual-Shutout Showdown Against St. Louis
by Tom Walker
November 12, 2026
SALT LAKE CITY–Joel Hofer and Karel Vejmelka were perfect in net for 65 minutes, but the Blues prevail in an eight-round shootout 1-0, Utah’s first since April 14, 2025.
A banged up Utah Mammoth squad (10-8-1) returned to Delta Center on Thursday night for their first home game since a 3-1 loss to Minnesota on October 27. Utah went 2-3-1 in during their season-longest 6-game road trip. Among those out of the lineup on Thursday were sniper Dylan Guenther who is on IR, Logan Cooley who is day-to-day, and Nick Schmaltz whose 220-game iron man streak comes to a close with a lower body injury. The Mammoth flew home from Las Vegas earlier in the day following a 5-3 loss Wednesday night to the Golden Knights while the Blues were well-rested having arrived the previous day from St. Louis.
Making their Mammoth debut in the game were defenseman Zac Jones and forward Ben McCartney. Jones previously played in 45 games with the New York Rangers alongside offseason acquisition Vincent Trocheck. McCartney was drafted by Arizona in 2020 and has two prior NHL games on his resume while with the Coyotes. Also making a home debut in the game were the new blue Hometown Remix jerseys.
The first period didn’t provide much offense, but it did pack plenty of punch as Liam O’Brien dropped the gloves with Ross Johnston less than two minutes into the matchup. O’Brien has been assessed fighting majors in each of his last two games at Delta Center, and has previously fought Johnston on two other occasions. Utah leads the league in fighting majors this season with 11, and O’Brien’s career 11 fighting majors ranks second in franchise history to Jack McBain who has 17. The period would end with Joel Hofer and Karel Vejmelka turning away 10 and 5 shots respectively.
The second period offered no more offense than the first despite the opportunities provided as each team was whistled for three penalties in the frame. Hofer and Vejmelka each stopped 9 shots to go to the locker rooms scoreless.
As the third period progressed with both goalies pitching a shutout, the emerging storyline was whether or not this would be the night that Utah would face its first shootout since April 14, 2025, when they lost to Nashville near the end of the 2024-2025 season. Each netminder stopped 7 shots in the frame to send the game to overtime. Five minutes of three-on-three yielded the same result, snapping Utah’s 105 game streak of games without the game-deciding skills competition.
Vincent Trocheck opened the shootout putting the puck past Hofer for the early lead. Jake Neighbours immediately responded with a backhand to beat Vejmelka. The next skaters for each squad hit the post. In the 7th round, both Michael Carcone and Jimmy Snuggerud scored to keep the shootout going. In the 8th round, however, St. Louis forward Connor McMichael beat Vejmelka to win the game for the visitors.
In the Mammoth locker room, Trocheck spoke of what it took to get through the game. “I’m pretty happy with the way we played,” the forward began. “I thought we played hard, defended really well. Obviously, it goes on to a shootout, but the way we responded on a back-to-back with the amount of injuries that we’ve had in the last couple days is definitely a positive.” On people stepping up amidst key injuries, Trocheck said, “I think any team, throughout the course of a season, you’re going to have injuries, and it’s very important for the depth to step up and fill the role of whatever they’re asked to do and I thought everybody did that tonight.” On the team’s defensive effort, Trocheck added, “I think that we’ve been getting better every night throughout the course of the year, and I mean when you shut a team out, it’s obviously a positive. I just thought that the way we played, we stuck to our plan the whole game and didn’t get away from it. Played hard in the D zone. Bear always talks about pace, and I thought our pace was great.”
Newcomer Zac Jones commented, “Obviously, losing the top guys that we have out, you can’t really replace those guys. But the guys that played I thought did a great job of just sticking to our roles, and honestly, we played a great game today. Credit to their goalie, he played well, and it’s the way it goes sometimes.” Asked about what it took for him to get back to the NHL after spending significant time in the AHL, Jones said, “A lot of hard work, a lot of belief in myself. Being a guy that was kind of the seventh in New York for my entire career, it was tough to make a name for myself. It was nothing against them, they were great there, it was just time to move on. I think last year in Rochester, getting to play all the time kind of rebuilt my confidence again and proved to myself that I can be a pro hockey player.”
Utah Mammoth Head Coach André Tourigny opened his post-game comments, saying, “I’m really proud of our guys. We challenged them this morning. We talked about having to accept [playing] a kind of game that is a little different than when we have a full lineup. Our boys really bought into that and they played a hard-checking game, probably the best game in our D-zone of the year. Our track was really solid. (St. Louis) is one of the best, if not the best rush teams in the league. I think we gave up one chance off the rush, something like that. Really good game by (Karel Vejmelka), no doubt about it. That was good to have (Vejmelka) at his best. I think on the back-to-back; obviously we wanted the two points. There are no moral victories in the NHL. But we lost in a shootout. We didn’t lose in a 3-on-3, we lost in a skills competition. We wanted the two points, I won’t lie, but I cannot be more proud of our guys.” Bear continued, “If I could talk about all our players that I liked tonight, we’d be here for a while. You don’t have your team buying in and playing that hard defensively because the coach said something. It’s because the leaders said something. It’s the leaders who bought in and everybody else bought in. And that’s why they play(ed) that hard…Tonight, (Clayton Keller) was heavy in his battles. (Anders Lee) was heavy down low. (Vincent Trocheck) played a million minutes. (Lawson Crouse, Jack McBain, Michael Carcone), they played against their first line probably 80% or 90% of their shifts. They played hard and they played well. We split our pairings to try and have a little more balance and a little more depth on the back end. (MacKenzie Weegar and Dmitri Simashev) were really good. (Andrew Peeke and Mikhail Sergachev) were really good. For that matter, (Artem Duda) had a good game and (Zac Jones) for his first game was really good as well. I don’t have a lot to whine about right now.”
There are two ways to look at Utah’s results in the new Hometown Remix jerseys. They have earned points in both games they’ve played, having also worn them in an overtime loss in Montreal on the recent road trip. Or they are winless in each game they’ve worn them. In either case, the blue sweaters are a big hit with the fans and could be seen everywhere at Delta Center on Thursday night.
Next up for the Mammoth (10-8-2) are the San Jose Sharks (8-11-2) on Saturday, followed by games at home next week against Vancouver, Colorado, and Anaheim.
