Minnesota Wild right wing Maxim Shabanov (49) shoots and scores during a game against the Utah Mammoth at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026 (Lukas Katilius, Deseret News).
(Lukas Katilius, Deseret News)
SALT LAKE CITY – Amid a heated divisional matchup between the top two teams in the Central Division, the Utah Mammoth were their own worst enemy, struggling to stay out of the penalty box against the Minnesota Wild.
Failing to ever establish offensive rhythm, Utah committed seven penalties, and the Wild made them pay for their repeated infractions.
It might be the understatement of the year to describe Utah’s matchup with Minnesota as simply a battle.
After three fights and 11 combined penalties, it’s difficult to properly explain how the Mammoth and Wild went to war with each other on Tuesday night, as the top two clubs in the Central Division refused to hold anything back.
Unfortunately for Utah, however, they were on the wrong side of all those penalties, committing seven in total and effectively derailing any momentum they had to generate even an ounce of offense.
And we’ve got a fight in Utah! 👊 https://t.co/Okk5egfKoK
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 28, 2026
AND NOW SERGACHEV AND BOLDY DROP THEM 🤯🥊
CHAOS IN UTAH 😳 https://t.co/bhxHVswKrP
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) October 28, 2026
Now, to be fair, Utah’s goaltending and penalty kill were better than they’d been in previous games.
Before ultimately surrendering two goals on seven power play opportunities for the Wild (71 percent), Utah started the night 5/5 as they took away the middle of the ice, denied opportunities down low and utilized active sticks to help out Karel Vejmelka.
But as penalties continued to stack up, the seventh best power play in the league eventually found the back of the net twice to put the game out of reach.
bar ⬇️ https://t.co/WSyihibsni
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) October 28, 2026
seems like we have been drinking a lot of milk recently, no complaints from us https://t.co/6btE0wGlXb
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) October 28, 2026
“They have some of the best players in the league, and you put them on the power play, they’re going to capitalize that many times,” Logan Cooley explained. “We didn’t give them a ton at even play.”
“Like I said, if you give a team, whatever, five power plays they’re probably going to capitalize with the type of players they have.”
Additionally, given the sheer volume of penalties, Utah never had a chance to generate any offense as they sat in the box for nearly an entire period of play (14 minutes).
“You get in the box seven times against that kind of a power play, you will get hurt,” Head coach Andre Tourigny said. “But it’s as well the momentum we lost in our rotation.”
“From the end of the first period until the third period, we did not have one time we could go our full lines, one after the other one.”
As Tourigny continued, he complimented their goaltending and penalty kill but doubled down on the fact that the number of penalties eliminated their ability to find any rhythm in a 3-1 loss.
“He gave us a chance for a long time. I think they beat him on really, really good plays,” Tourigny noted. “Our PK was solid. You’ll tell me we gave up two goals; (Minnesota) had to take a perfect shot to score their first goal. The second goal, we blew a tire. That’s the kind of thing that’s unfortunate but was not a structure thing. It’s just really unfortunate because we were right there and one shot away.”
“It’s tough when you don’t have the opportunity to get into the rhythm of the game. That’s self-inflicted. I’m not deflecting. We take responsibility on that, and we need to learn from it.”
The Utah Mammoth will begin a six-game road trip against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday at 5 p.m. MT.
The game will be available on SEG+.
All Mammoth games will also be broadcast live on the KSL Sports Zone (97.5 FM/1280 AM).
Cole Bagley is the Utah Mammoth insider for KSL Sports. Follow him on X. You can hear Cole break down the team on KSL Sports Zone and KSL 5 TV.
