Tag: detroit red wings

Utah Mammoth center Nick Schmaltz (8) grabs the puck as the Detroit Red Wings defenseman Ben Chiarot (8) defends in the first period at the Delta Center on Wed Feb 4, 2026 (AP News photo)

By Tom Walker

SALT LAKE CITY– Detroit Red Wing goaltender Karel Vejmelka delivers inspired performance in honor of his uncle as Utah dominated Detroit 4-1 on both ends of the ice.

The Utah Mammoth (29-23-4) took to the ice Wednesday night for the final home game prior to the Olympic break against the Detroit Red Wings (33-18-6).  Prior to the game, Utah paid tribute to its four Olympians who will depart this week for Milan, Italy: Clayton Keller (USA), JJ Peterka (Germany), Karel Vejmelka (Czechia), and Olli Määttä (Finland).  Keller makes his Olympics debut after captaining Team USA to a gold medal at the 2025 IIHF World Championships, its first in 92 years.

Peterka is also making his Olympics debut, having previously won a silver medal at the 2023 IIHF World Championships, Germany’s first medal in 70 years.  Vejmelka is the third Mammoth player making his Olympic debut in Italy, having previously represented Czechia in the past four IIHF World Championships where he won the gold medal in Prague in 2024.

Lastly, Määttä makes his second Olympic appearance, having won the bronze medal for Finland at Sochi in 2014. Three members of the Detroit Red Wings are also traveling to Milan this week: Dylan Larkin (USA), Moritz Seider (Germany), and Lucas Raymond (Sweden).

Breaking from the team’s recent trend of slow starts, the Mammoth hit the scoreboard just 57 seconds into the contest when Detroit forward Andrew Copp attempted to clear the puck from behind his net to linemate Alex DeBrincat who fanned on the puck allowing Sean Durzi to one-time a snap shot from the dasher boards past John Gibson for his 5th goal of the season unassisted. 

Utah went on the power play at 7:50 when Red Wings forward Dylan Larkin went to the sin bin for slashing against Lawson Crouse. Nick Schmaltz, who has been on a hot streak of late, cashed it in just 21 seconds later for his 23rd of the season, tying his career-best high of 2021-2022 with the Coyotes, assisted by Barrett Hayton and Keller. His five power play goals this season tie him with Dylan Guenther for the team lead. 

During a TV timeout, Utah recognized future Hall of Fame forward Patrick Kane, who passed Mike Modano last week Thursday to become the highest-scoring United States-born player in NHL history with his 1,375th point on an assist against the Capitals. Kane was shown acknowledging the crowd on the Jumbotron as players from both teams tapped their sticks and fans saluted him with a standing ovation.

The 37-year-old flashed some slick moves in the first period, but Vejmelka kept him off the scoresheet. The opening frame concluded with the Mammoth leading 2-0.  Gibson stopped 7 of 9 in the first, while Vejmelka turned away all 6 Red Wings shots on goal.

The second period was all defense, with Gibson denying 9 Mammoth shots on goal, while Vejmelka stopped 11 including some world class saves on the penalty kill.

Dylan Guenther, who leads all Mammoth players in goals on the season, gave Utah some additional breathing room at 4:40 of the third period when he won a puck battle at the blue line and then powered his way to the front of the net to put a wrist shot past Gibson for his 25th unassisted. 

Down 3-0 and with Nick DeSimone in the penalty box for a puck over the glass infraction, Detroit pulled its goalie for a 6-on-4 man advantage which succeeded in killing Vejmelka’s shutout when Dylan Larkin found the back of the net for his 26th of the season, assisted by James van Riemsdyk  and Moritz Seider. 

With fresh memories of surrendering 3 goals in 89 seconds against Carolina six days earlier, the Mammoth shut the Red Wings down the rest of the way, with Olympian Clayton Keller picking up his 17th goal of the season into an empty net at 17:42, assisted by Schmaltz and Crouse, sending dozens of fans wearing red sweaters to the exits.  Utah held on to win 4-1 and are now 12-4-1 since New Year’s Day.

The box score on Utah’s Olympians: Keller finished with a goal and an assist, Peterka played a solid game but was scoreless, and Vejmelka stopped 29 of 30 shots for his league-leading 27th victory.

Vejmelka had extra motivation to perform well in tribute to his uncle who just passed away. “Yeah, he was a big, big, sport. You know, he played tennis very well for a long time, so he taught me a lot. He was a great human being. This game was for him and I obviously performed for him tonight.” As Utah heads into the break, Veggie said, “I think we are moving in the right direction. We are hitting the right way and we need to keep that same mindset for the rest of the season. With using this break to rest our minds, but have that same mindset when we get back here.” With regard to the Olympics, Vejmelka added, “I believe I should try to keep the same mindset, obviously the ring will be the same size, maybe even a little smaller. So I don’t think it’s gonna be a big difference. I just try to focus on the next game, but this was a huge moment for us to get this win tonight.”

Dylan Guenther, speaking of the team’s overall confidence heading into the break, said, “It’s great. I think heading into the break while getting a couple wins, makes you feel good. It lets you relax a little bit. It’s not in the back of your head. So I’m just happy we got those two wins. And it’s nice to take the time off.” When asked about maintaining the team’s momentum when they return from the break, Guenther said, “I think just go have a good break, but stay in shape, while also taking advantage of this time. We played well coming back last year, but not good enough. St. Louis was hot, and a lot of teams are going to come out flying. So we need to make sure that we’re ready to go in the first game.”

Head Coach André Tourigny’s first words at the microphone after greeting the media following the game: “It was a solid game by our special teams. Our goalie was rock solid. It was a huge win for us. Hell yeah!”  The scoring was spread out throughout the lineup on Wednesday night, and Tourigny remarked, “You talk about the scoring, no doubt. But as well, I think everybody contributed. I think our fourth line was key tonight in the third period, especially. Big fight by (Brandon Tanev). In the third period, every time they were on the ice they got on the forecheck, they got the puck deep…I think they gave us some energy. That was really good. That’s one of our strengths that we have them (fourth line).” On the team’s best penalty killer in the crease, Tourigny said of Vejmelka, “It helps you win games, no doubt about it. I think he’s been on a good stretch, played a lot of hockey and is going to the Olympics. I’m happy for him. You never know how those guys going to the Olympics will be able to stay in the present. The three (Olympians) who played, they were rock solid today. JJ (Peterka) was really good. (Clayton Keller) was really good. And (Vejmelka) was really good. I’m proud of them and our team needed them. We all know the standings. But more importantly, we challenged ourselves to say ‘hey, you win that game, you finish before the break in a playoff spot. You lose, you may not.’ That was an important one for us.”

A reporter for KSL-TV asked Bear about the team’s recent results despite several key injuries including Logan Cooley and Alexander Kerfoot. He responded, “That’s a good question and deserves a good long answer. But the big thing is, we have depth. But we have guys that are really good in their own ways. If you look at, for example, Jack McBain, he’s a really good player in his own style. If you look across the league to get a guy who plays with that kind of pace, that kind of drive, who can make plays with the puck, who can win big draws, play on special teams and stuff like that. That’s an example. It’s the same thing for Barrett Hayton, or if we go with (Kailer Yamamoto) who’s depth; but he can play at any moment in our top six or our top nine and generate offense and win battles. If I went throughout our lineup like that, we have that in our lineup. We don’t have guys who are just OK at a little bit of everything. They all have something that they bring; energy, physicality…Kevin Stenlund is one of the best (penalty kill) players in the league, so on and so forth. All of them, they have something (that is) really good…NHL good. That’s why we’re capable of being successful even if we’re missing very good players.”  Up in the press box I asked Cooley if he was good to go when play resumes at the end of the month and he gave a thumbs up.

For Utah’s players without travel plans during the Olympic break, they will have been able to spend the entire month of February without leaving home thanks to a schedule which resumes for three games at Delta Center beginning February 25th against the top team in the NHL, the Colorado Avalanche, which is also projected to mark the return of star forward Cooley (14g, 9a, 23pts in 29 games) from the Injured Reserved list. Utah went 16-11-1 during Cooley’s absence.

Utah Hockey Club goaltender Karel Vejmelka (70) had a rough night against the Detroit Red Wings faced 13 shots, saved nine and allowed four goals at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Mon Mar 24, 2025 (AP News photo)

By Tom Walker

SALT LAKE CITY–Utah finishes homestand on a losing note as Red Wings score five unanswered goals in a 5-1 win at the Delta Center.

Heading into Monday night’s contest against the Detroit Red Wings, the Utah Hockey Club had won seven of their last nine home games in an effort to keep their playoff hopes alive. Each team entered the matchup with 32 wins on the season, with Utah holding an edge in points thanks to 11 overtime or shootout losses versus 6 for the Wings who are also in the Wild Card hunt in the Eastern Conference.

The first period started off bright for the home team when Tyler Motte was whistled for tripping against Kevin Stenlund, giving Utah an early power play opportunity. Captain Clayton Keller fired a perfect pass to Dylan Guenther who one-timed a slap shot past Detroit goaltender Alex Lyon for his 26th goal of the season and a 1-0 Utah lead.

A little more than a minute later, however, Utah defenseman Sean Durzi lost the puck in the offensive zone and Vladimir Tarasenko was off to the races, feeding linemate Elmer Soderblom who put the puck past Karel Vejmelka for his 4th goal of the season to tie things up.

Early in the second period, Red Wings forward Marco Kasper banked the puck off of Utah’s Lawson Crouse in front of the net for a fluke goal, his 14th of the season, giving Detroit a 2-1 lead. The two squads would exchange power play opportunities during the period but the two netminders held off any further scoring.

At 9:51 of the third period, Detroit would collect its second fluke goal of the game when a shot toward the net from the blue line by Simon Edvinsson would deflect off the stick of Austin Watson at the top of the faceoff circle and fly just over the left shoulder of Karel Vejmelka into the top corner of the net to make it 3-1.

For Watson it was his first goal of the season in his fourth game as a Red Wing. With the clock winding down to the final few minutes, Utah pulled Vejmelka for an extra attacker, but Detroit was able to capitalize as Alex DeBrinkat put the game out of reach for good with his 33rd goal of the season into the empty net, assisted by Patrick Kane.

Adding insult to injury, with 88 seconds left on the clock, Tyler Motte picked up a rebound from a shot by Craig Smith to notch his 3rd goal of the season and finish off Utah 5-1.

In the locker room after the game, Utah defenseman Ian Cole weighed in on the game. “I think overall, it was a decent game, but ultimately, regardless of what the balance is, we lost the game. There’s a lot of turning points that we could talk about over the course of that game, but overall, we didn’t get the job done.” With regard to the challenge of making the playoffs, Cole continued, “Nothing’s easy, right? You need a lot of good force on your side. You need calls on your side, you need to take advantage of opportunities, and you need to play really, really good hockey. You need kind of a perfect storm to get into the playoffs and then have success when you’re in the playoffs. You need all those things going for you. Tonight some of those things did not go for us, but we’re right back at it against a great team in Tampa in a couple days. We’ll have to look at the video and figure out what went wrong and what we could have done better, and then fix that and move on.”

Captain Clayton Keller also faced the media. “We had a good start. We had a lot of possessions, some shots early, but I don’t think we did a good enough job of getting to the inside, hitting those rebounds … power plays got to be better. We had a good start there, but we have to find a way to get another one there. So that’s definitely frustrating as well. … There’s never going to be any quit in this room ever. We’re going to fight all the way until the end. We’re going to try to win every single game from here on out. Never know what can happen. We’re going to stay motivated, learn from this game, (and) attack this next road trip. We go 3-0, you never know what will happen.”

Utah Head coach André Tourigny began his media room comments by saying, “I think we got a little bit unlucky on our goal against. The puck was bouncing a lot tonight. It was tough to execute. I would have loved to simplify a little bit, go more at the net, and (be a little) bit more dirty. I thought we had a good start. But we could have simplified a little more in our shooting mentality in trying to make plays. Like I said, at the end of the day we got unlucky.” When asked what adjustments he would have liked to have seen, Tourigny commented, “More (of a) shooting mentality, more shots on net, more broken plays. Give them credit; they played well defensively, which we did as well. We gave up five shots after two (periods). We kept them on the outside pretty good. The way we played defensively was alright. Offensively, I think we could have simplified. … I have no problem with the way we played in terms of intensity, battle, those kinds of (things). I don’t have much to say. I’m trying to be creative here. We didn’t execute right offensively and we tried to do too much. We should have gone to the net and had some scrappy goals and we didn’t.”

Utah now hits the road for a trio of games against Tampa Bay, Florida, and Chicago before returning to Delta Center on April 1 against Calgary for the first of five games on the final homestand of the inaugural season.