Salt Lake City has a rich history of minor league hockey; it even helped them land an NHL team in the Utah Mammoth, but because of that success, the lower-level game is now leaving the market.

NHL Insider Frank Seravalli reported on Monday that the Utah Grizzlies are in their final year of playing in the Beehive State, moving to Trenton, New Jersey for the 2026-27 season. The team is the Colorado Avalanche‘s ECHL affiliate, and has been since 2018. That’s the year the Loveland-based Colorado Eagles jumped, as part of hockey’s great affiliation shuffle, to the highest tier American Hockey League (AHL.) The Avs traded out an AHL affiliation with Cleveland and then San Antonio to an ECHL one with Salt Lake City, which stayed behind in the ECHL.

Franchise News: Hearing @ECHL‘s @UtahGrizzlies are relocating to Trenton, NJ to play at CURE Insurance Arena – former longtime home of the Titans – for the 2026-27 season.

Expect a formal announcement on Tuesday and a contest to follow to name the team.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) September 8, 2025

It’s unclear if this means another shuffle for the Avs is coming, as it likely does not behoove the franchise to have a team playing in their system out in New Jersey. If Colorado does try for a new city, serendipitously, Albuquerque is getting an ECHL team for the 2026-27 season, which would help the Avs four-corner footprint and further tie New Mexico to Denver sports. The Triple-A baseball Istopes are the highest partner for the Colorado Rockies.

But the New Mexico Hockey Club has been working with the Dallas Stars a bit, and if they become partners, that would open up the Idaho Steelheads. Also there’s an ECHL team right outside of Dallas in Allen, meaning the addition of the Mammoth, coupled with the Grizzlies’ move and the Stars plan, could end up reforming a ton of affiliations across the third-tier of hockey in North America.

“Utah has been more than a home – it has been part of our identity. But ensuring the Grizzlies have the opportunity to thrive in the future may require new ownership and, potentially, a new home,” Elmore Sports Group announced in June when they decided to sell the team.

This will be Trenton’s second ECHL team as the city once housed the Titans from 1999 to 2013, though their ceasing of operations before could give the Avs some pause about entering the market.

For Utah, it’s the end of a team that relocated from Denver as the Grizzlies, as they sought a new market after the Avalanche entered the Mile High City in 1995. At the time, the Denver team had just won a Turner Cup championship in the International Hockey League. The team repeated as champs in their first year in Utah and even earned a call-up to the AHL for a while.

The Avs were once somewhat the home team for those in Utah, with the arrival of the Golden Knights and then Mammoth, there’s some lost Rocky Mountain territory for Colorado to two teams that are considered rivals.