San Jose Sharks defenseman Eric Pohlkamp (48) fights for position with Utah Mammoth center Liam O’Brien (38) during the second period at the Delta Airlines Center in Salt Lake City on Sat Nov 14, 2026 (AP News photo)
By Tom Walker
SALT LAKE CITY–The Utah Mammoth down in the back to back shootouts after a 105 game streak without playing in one. The San Jose Sharks Erick Pohlkamp records his first NHL goal in San Jose’s 6-5 shootout comeback win.
The Mammoth (10-8-2) welcomed the Sharks (8-11-2) to Delta Center on Saturday night for the first of three regular season tilts as both teams sought to overcome recent struggles. Since moving to Utah, the Mammoth entered the game with a 3-1-2 record against San Jose. Utah was in desperate need of secondary scoring with Dylan Guenther, Nick Schmaltz, and Logan Cooley all out of the lineup with injuries.
A reliable source of offense for Utah this season has been the defense. In 20 games this season, Mammoth blue liners have scored 48 points including 16 goals to share the league lead with the Edmonton Oilers. In his post-game interview on Thursday, new arrival Zac Jones commented about how he likes to get involved with the offense, and in the first period on Saturday he made good on his remarks.
Just over two minutes into the game, Jones tipped in a perfect pass from Kailer Yamamoto for his first goal of the season and first as a Mammoth, with the additional assist by Clayton Keller. The last time Jones lit the lamp in the NHL was almost exactly two years ago against the Kraken when he was with the Rangers.
At 8:24 of the frame, Will Smith went to the sin bin for tripping against Jones, and a half minute later Utah defenseman Mikhail Sergachev made it 2-0 on the power play with his sixth of the season, also assisted by Yamamoto and Keller.
San Jose was able to get one back on the power play when Tyler Toffoli netted his sixth of the season with MacKenzie Weegar in the box for delay of game, assisted by Dmitry Orlov and Will Smith. Barely a minute later, however, the Mammoth restored their two-goal lead when a blast from Jones trickled through the legs of Yaroslav Askarov and across the goal line for his second of the night and the season, assisted by Anders Lee.
It was his first career two-goal game, having previously scored four goals in 116 NHL contests. Piling it on for the Utah blue liners, the three goals marked the first time the franchise has had 3 goals from defensemen in the same game, let alone the same period. Askarov finished the period stopping 9 of 12 Utah shots, while Karel Vejmelka turned away 4 of 5.
The Sharks began to stage a comeback early in the second period, going on the power play at 1:19 when Jack McBain was whistled for tripping against Macklin Celebrini. With 12 seconds remaining on the man-advantage, Adam Gaudette cashed it in for his first goal of the season, assisted by Orlov and Michael Misa.
Six seconds later, Zack Ostapchuk silenced the Delta Center crowd tying the game at 3-3 with his second goal of the season, assisted by Darnell Nurse. Nine minutes into the period, Jack McBain became the first Utah forward to find the back of the net since his second period goal against the Golden Knights on Wednesday to put Utah ahead 4-3.
Apparently taking his cues from Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting,” Mammoth defenseman Andrew Peeke spent half the period in the penalty box, drawing 5-minute majors for fights with Ty Dellandrea and Gaudette.
Prior to the second period, Peeke had had a grand total of 2 fights in his entire NHL career. In addition to Peeke doubling his pleasure, Utah took the NHL lead in fighting majors this season with 12. At the end of two, Utah led by one with Askarov stopping 7 of 8 shots in the frame while Vejmelka turned away 6 of 8.
San Jose made it a new game at 5:23 of the third period when Eric Pohlkamp came through with his first career NHL goal, assisted by Celebrini, to tie things up at 4. That’s where things stood until 5:43 remained on the clock and Dmitry Orlav gave the Sharks their first lead of the night with his 3rd goal of the season, assisted by Collin Graf and Mason Marchment.
With 4:30 remaining, however, Ivar Stenberg opened the door for a Mammoth comeback, going to the sin bin for slashing against Anders Lee. Less than a minute later Utah drew even again at 5-5 when Barrett Hayton deflected a shot into the net for his 3rd of the season, assisted by Yamamoto and Sergachev, ultimately forcing overtime.
With no scoring in the overtime period, the Mammoth went to their second straight shootout on the heels of having gone 105 consecutive games without one. For the second straight game, Vincent Trocheck led off with a shootout goal to give Utah the early advantage.
In the second round, Celebrini put the puck past Vejmelka to draw even. In Round 5, Mason Marchment put a wrist shot past Vejmelka to seal the win for San Jose as Utah fell in their fourth consecutive shootout appearance, the last win in the skills competition having come February 9, 2025, against the Washington Capitals.
Prior to Saturday night’s tilt, the Mammoth had been a perfect 7-0-0 this season when leading after one, and 7-0-1 when scoring first while San Jose had been 3-7-1 when trailing after one and 5-9-2 when allowing the first goal.
“I think it’s frustrating right now,” said Mammoth forward Barrett Hayton in the locker room after the game. “Obviously, having a good start, getting a lead. I think we just have to manage the game better. I know we’ve talked about that a lot, but just little instances make a difference. You never know when they are, but ultimately, there’s gonna be games like that where it’s a fine margin of error, and yeah, it’s just not good enough.” With regard to the challenges the team has been going through, Hayton remarked, “I mean, that’s the NHL. There’s always adversity. It’s no unique situation. Every team goes through it, and I think we talked about it a couple of days ago. I thought against St. Louis, we did a good job showing that. I think it just needs to be more consistent every night. It can’t be ups and downs, and we just have to stay with it, regardless of the kind of situation, and kind of have that kind of cliché, but an overtime mentality throughout, no matter what the score or situation is.”
Defenseman Zac Jones spoke of the positive takeaways from the game. “Yeah, I mean, for me personally, it gives me confidence, and I think that being a guy who is coming in the lineup with all these injuries, it kind of fuels the group a little bit. You know, obviously, nobody’s kind of necessarily expecting me to put up two goals, and I really am not expecting myself. But it’s good for me personally, and I think it was good for the team.” Of his first NHL goals in nearly two years, Jones said, “I saw a break where Yanni got the puck, and he’s obviously one of the fastest players in the league. I just tried to catch up to him, basically, and he made a great pass. All I had to do was just tap it in. And the second one was just, you know, a puck that popped out. I just tried to get it on net. And the biggest thing for me is just getting my shots through and getting it past that first layer, and then letting the forwards do their job. And luckily, that one kind of squeaked through.”
“I think our guys worked really hard,” began Mammoth head coach André Tourigny in his opening statement. “We achieved, we showed character, and we came back. Jonesy had a great night. Scored two big goals for us which was a key moment. When they had a push in the second period, I thought we regrouped well and scored a big goal. It’s frustrating. We have nothing to show for. It’s not a league of moral victory. I think we generated a lot of offense, we almost doubled them in scoring chances. Obviously, Veg has to be better. I don’t want to say that about any of our players, but that’s just the way it is. So it is what it is. … It’s tough for me to go in front of you right now and complain. We played really good. So Bainer’s line again against Celebrini, they did a really good job. We need to find a way to win. We need everybody on board. We cannot have subpar performances from anybody if we want to win in that stretch. Nonetheless, it’s two points in our last two games. It’s not what we want. We want more than that, but that’s something to build on.”
In the winning locker room, Sharks forward Adam Gaudette said, “It was a big win, battled some adversity out there, and did a lot of things that we’ve been trying to improve on, and looking to do in order to win games. It’s starting to come together here, and we just got to keep our foot on the gas pedal and keep chugging away.” Having had a frustrating start to the season, Gaudette remarked, “It’s definitely relieving, it has been a little frustrating, but I’m just trying to do whatever I can to get in the lineup and stay in the lineup. That’s how they say they go in, off your foot, off your stick, whatever, eyes closed. You just got to keep trying to do the right things and good things will happen. On linemate Zack Ostapchuk’s goal, he added, “Absolutely, that was a big goal too. That goal gave us a ton of momentum in the game, it was a great shot he picked that corner there, and it’s good for our line to get a little confidence and momentum on the score sheet there. We’re trying to play the right way and not get scored on out there, but you know it’s a bonus when we can contribute offensively.”
Sharks head coach Ryan Warsofsky commented, “Found a way, ugly one to be honest with you, but back and forth it went. Found a way.” Do ugly wins lead to better hockey? “That’s the hope. We obviously need to do some things a little more consistently, I thought we had some positives in the game that we did, and some things we need to get cleaned up.” On the positives playing five-on-five, Warsofsky said, “I thought in the second we got back to playing quicker. To the neutral zone we were playing fast, got on our speed a little more, put them on their heels a little bit. Just gotta get more consistent with that.”
San Jose (9-11-2) is already back at it on Sunday night against the Nashville Predators (11-4-5). The Mammoth (10-8-3) continue their five-game homestand on Monday against the Vancouver Canucks (3-17-1), and no, that is not a misprint. Vancouver is presently on course to have the worst NHL season record in several decades, having lost 17 of their past 18 contests.
