Utah Mammoth Clayton Keller (9) shot gets pass Minnesota Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt (30) at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Fri Feb 27, 2026 (photo by Tom Walker)
By Tom Walker
SALT LAKE CITY–A tired Minnesota Wild squad, coming off of a 5-2 win in Colorado on Thursday, were outpaced start to finish by Utah’s high energy performance February 27, 2026 this tine losing to the Utah Mammoth 5-2 at the Delta Center.
The Utah Mammoth (30-24-4) squared off on Friday night against the Minnesota Wild (35-14-10) for the second of three contests between the teams this season. Back in October the Mammoth defeated the Wild in Minnesota by a score of 6-2. Two Utah players reached significant milestones during the game, with defenseman Nate Schmidt appearing in his 800th career game and forward Jack McBain suiting up for his 300th.
Schmidt is one of just six active undrafted players to reach the 800 game milestone. Matt Boldy, who scored the opening goal of Team USA’s victory over Canada in the Olympic gold medal game in Milan last Sunday, leads the Wild with 34 goals, while Team USA teammate Quinn Hughes leads his squad averaging 28:13 in time on the ice.
Utah forward Alexander Kerfoot gave Minnesota a power play opportunity at 11:38 of the first period, going to the penalty box for hooking against Ryan Hartman. The Mammoth did a great job of intercepting and clearing the puck, enabling a steady stream of fresh bodies with multiple short shifts.
With a half minute remaining in the penalty kill, defenseman Mikhail Sergachev took the puck up the ice from Utah’s defensive zone and across the Wild blue line where he dished the puck to McBain who skated the puck around the backside of the net before passing to Logan Cooley who then sent the puck back to Sergachev at the top of the blue line.
Sergachev put the puck back up the middle where McBain deflected it to Cooley who found the five-hole of Minnesota netminder Jesper Wallstedt for a shorthanded goal with 15 seconds remaining in the penalty kill. Cooley’s 15th goal of the season is his first since November 28 in Dallas, coming in his second game back from Injured Reserve.
The shorthander was the second of the season and third overall in Cooley’s career. The Mammoth took the 1-0 lead into the locker room, with Wallstedt stopping 14 of 15 Utah shots in the period, and Karel Vejmelka turning away all 5 Wild attempts.
At 4:26 of the second period, Mammoth Captain Clayton Keller doubled Utah’s lead with his 18th goal of the season, a wrist shot, assisted by Nick Schmaltz. A few minutes later, Associate Captain Lawson Crouse beat Wallstedt with a backhand for his 15th on the year, assisted by Keller and Schmaltz, to put the Mammoth up 3-0.
At 14:03 of the period, with Kailer Yamamoto in the sin bin for tripping Danila Yurov, Kirill Kaprizov got one back for the Wild with his 33rd goal of the season, assisted by Boldy and Mats Zuccarello. Later in the frame, Utah’s leading scorer Dylan Guenther thought he had his 28th goal of the season, but upon video review it was clear that the play was offside. Nevertheless, the Mammoth finished the second period holding onto a 3-1 lead. Shots were more even during the frame, with Wallstedt stopping six of eight and Vejmelka turning away nine of ten.
Barely over a minute into the third period, with a power play carrying over from the second when Minnesota defenseman Zach Bogosian was whistled for interference against Michael Carcone, Barrett Hayton put Utah up 4-1 on a slap shot for his 8th goal of the season, assisted by Sergachev and Keller.
With the assist, Keller becomes the first Utah player to reach 100 assists with the team since relocating from Arizona. With just over seven minutes remaining in regulation, the Mammoth spent what seemed like an eternity passing the puck around in the Wild zone, which often leads fans to scream “Shoot the puck!” to no avail as one too many passes results in the defending team thwarting the scoring effort.
This time, however, Lawson Crouse found the back of the net for his second goal of the game and 16th of the season, assisted by Sean Durzi and Jack McBain, to give Utah a commanding lead with time slipping away for the Wild. Crouse already has four more goals this season with March and April to go than he had in all of 2024-2025. Minnesota managed to scrounge up one final sign of life when Matt Boldy scored his 35th of the season, assisted by Vladimir Tarasenko and Marcus Johansson, but they completely ran out of steam afterward.
Trailing 5-2, the Wild never bothered to pull Wallstedt for an extra attacker in the closing minutes. Vejmelka stopped 21 of 23 shots for his 28th win of the season which ties him with Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy for the most NHL wins so far this season.
In the visitor locker room after the game, defenseman Brock Faber was asked about his Team USA teammate, Clayton Keller. “Playing against him every time, it feels like the past two years he’s definitely had our number. He’s so skilled, so fast. He was put in a little different role there, and he still bought into that role, and that just shows the person he is, how unselfish he is, and how bad he wanted to help that team win. I’ve said it so many times, he’s definitely one of the hardest players, in my opinion, to play against in this league. It shows his character, too, when he’s put in a little different role and still found a way to make the most of it.”
In the Mammoth locker room, Lawson Crouse talked about coming back after Wednesday’s loss to Colorado. “Yeah, just a great bounce-back game. The game the other night was a little bit difficult. Obviously, coming in after that much time off, we felt that we were playing towards our identity. We have talked a lot about that the last couple days. And just such a great answer from our group to go out there and play the way that we did for a full 60 minutes.” Asked about Keller’s persistent success against the Wild, Crouse said, “seems like it doesn’t matter what team we’re playing and he’s still picking up points. He’s just a lot of fun to play with, and a lot of credit to Schmaltz too. They play so well together, reading off each other. It’s just a lot of fun to play with them and a lot of fun to watch.”
For his part, Keller told the media, “We’re obviously a really fast team and can make a lot of plays, but I think the biggest thing for us is sticking to our identity as much as we can. It’s hard to do. I think we’ve gotten better as the years have gone on. The good teams are the most consistent. Even when you don’t feel your best, you find a way. I think we’re showing steps in the right direction. There’s got to be more consistency.” Keller continued to break down the game. “Obviously, a good first. Then in the second, there are times this year where we’ve kind of let off for whatever reason, if we didn’t score a few or they make a big save, but tonight, we just kept rolling it over shift after shift in the second. Just tried to play direct, simple, make them work for everything. I think we did a good job of that tonight.” Of his own line, he said, “Since we’ve been together, there’s some chemistry. We’re always talking about different things that we see in practice days, morning skate, and throughout the games. I think Crouser has been so big for us. He creates so much space for me and Schmaltzy. He does the little things that separate us. It’s great to see that he can finish too. He’s a really smart player, and I really enjoy playing with him.”
Of Keller and Schmaltz’s line, head coach André Tourigny said, “They have that sense, and they can hunt pucks and create turnovers and are good on the forecheck and stuff like that. They’re hungry, they want to go at it, and they stay on top of their opponent. What I like about them, and through the years, when they started to play together a few years ago, they were a rush line. I believe if you want to be a really good line, you need to be more in there, even if you’re productive on the rush. When the game gets tight and push comes to shove, you need to be able to be good at creating traffic by the net, be good on the forecheck, be good at playing in the dirty area and playing that grind game. That line became really good with the years of doing it. You saw today, the goal of Kells is a turnover caused by a lot of pressure on one of the best defensemen in the world. That shows how good, how good they can be when they have that aggression.” Asked about Cooley’s skating ability in his second game back from injury, Bear said, “It’s elite. I think what makes that kind of player special is he’s not just fast, but he’s smart. He can change direction, he can jump in the hole, he can see the space, he can be elusive, and he can make you think he’s going there, and then he’s going there. That makes him special. His skating is really, really good, but there’s other good skaters in the league, I’m not saying at his level, he’s probably in the top tier of the league and even more, but it’s more about adding the IQ to that. That’s what makes the difference. What I did like about his skating today, it was not fast and in the corner. It was fast and at the net, and that play will set up the next play and the next time where he can make a pass and so on and so forth.”
Tourigny spent some time talking about Lawson Crouse’s return to form this season. “It starts with his mindset. I don’t have enough time to express how much I respect this guy. Last year, rightfully so, he was feeling bad, and you see this year he was ready. You see how good he is, but more importantly, he handled that like a man, like a character, like an elite individual when you have adversity. When things are going well, this doesn’t need a university class to indulge yourself. It’s just a little bit of common sense and you’re good. When push comes to shove and it’s really tough and it’s really hard, and things are not going well, and you end up indulging yourself the way you did last year, he took ownership, took responsibility, stood in front of you, stood tall, head up and owned it. That means a lot. That meant a lot for me, I’m sure it meant a lot for you, for our fans, for our players in that room, for our management, everybody was kind of like okay that not a guy who points fingers and looks for excuses. He’s a guy who takes responsibility. He said to me in my exit meeting, we don’t need to talk. I will do my talking when I am back for training camp. I think he’s speaking really loudly this year. The respect I have for a guy who goes through adversity, everybody stumbles in life like it’s how you react to adversity. That’s why he’s one of our leaders and we’re really proud of him.”
Utah (31-24-4) closes out the homestand on Sunday with a 2:00pm tilt against the Chicago Blackhawks (22-27-9), whom they will play three times over a period of twelve days. The Mammoth continue to hold onto the first Wild Card spot in the Western Conference standings.
Sports Radio Service 