I wouldn’t blame you if you had tuned out of Saturday’s game. It seemed like it would be a high-scoring one at first when Yegor Sharangovich scored 16 seconds into the game. However, it turned into a cold war where the second goal wasn’t scored until three minutes before the game ended.
It was a quiet and forgetful end to the road trip. One where we saw the best and the worst out of the Utah Mammoth. Here are some takeaways from Saturday’s 2-0 loss to the Calgary Flames.
Beginning of the End
It took the Flames 16 seconds to win the game. You read that right. 16 seconds into the game, the Flames won the game.
Jack McBain coughed up the puck in the neutral zone, and the puck flew all the way back behind the Mammoth’s net. Nazem Kadri took advantage of the loose puck and wrapped around, and shot it on net. While Vítek Vaněček stopped the first shot, he couldn’t stop Sharangovich from potting in the rebound to put the Flames up 1-0.
16 SECONDS IN! pic.twitter.com/2iKGguhMMU
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 7, 2025
While the Mammoth didn’t make the same mistakes defensively, they did for the rest of the game; they still failed to score due to their lack of front net presence.
“Not the start we’re expecting,” head coach André Tourigny said. “The rest of the game, we played a solid five-on-five. Offensively, if you want to score in that leg, you need to get in the eyes of the goalie. You need to disturb the defense a little bit more. We were a little bit too perimeter.”
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The biggest problem was that for 59 minutes, the Mammoth were playing catch-up. It didn’t matter how well they played. They ran into a hot goaltender. Playing catch-up can be a deadly game. When you’re facing a great goaltender, it’s even worse.
The quick start for the Flames and the loss for the Mammoth shouldn’t even be blamed on Vaněček. He actually played a really solid game on Saturday, making 21 saves on 22 shots while recording a .955 save percentage. The Mammoth just failed to get into the game early, and it cost them.
“(We were) pretty much playing the rest of the game trying to play catch-up,” Nate Schmidt said. “We picked up the puck quite a bit in the third period. I thought we caught him a couple of times and had some sustained ozone time. Sometimes we need to get into the game a little quicker.”
Hungry Like the Wolf
There was no other choice for the first star. Dustin Wolf was by far and away the best player on either team on Saturday. He was the reason why the Mammoth lost the game and the reason why the Flames have been winning some games as of late.
Wolf ended up making 28 saves to get his second shutout of the season. It was also his eighth win of the season. While his .899 save percentage hasn’t been fantastic, you also have to realize he’s not playing with a great team in front of him and is playing most of the games for the Flames.
Love a shutout highlight pack 🥅#Flames | @scotiabank pic.twitter.com/pUHQmGkpxU
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 7, 2025
At only age 24, Wolf is proving to be part of the next generation of great goaltenders in the NHL, alongside players like Jesper Wallstedt and Lukáš Dostál. It gets even more insane when you realize Wolf was one of the last players taken in the 2019 draft. He has been a steal for the Flames and will more than likely continue to be one as he heads into his long-term extension.
It didn’t help that the Mammoth only had one power play opportunity. Not even an anticipated fight between Ryan Lomberg and Liam O’Brien could spark a goal.
One of the big problems is that the Mammoth couldn’t get a rebound to save their lives. They didn’t really challenge Wolf with their shots, including creating traffic to screen him.
“Gotta elevate against the goaltender that goes down and then quick across,” Schmidt said. “Trying to shoot through the screen, trying to hope, it felt like he was seeing the puck really well. Trying to shoot back against the green, against something underneath them, maybe he wouldn’t be able to see the release. You at least got to try and create a rebound there.”
Calgary Flames goaltender Dustin Wolf makes a save on Utah Mammoth center Jack McBain (Brett Holmes-Imagn Images)
The other place where the Mammoth really struggled was in the faceoff dot. It was pretty bad against the Flames as they won only 20 out of 57 opportunities. That is a win 35% of the time. Not good at all, especially when the Mammoth were chasing their opponents for the whole game.
“We got kicked out a lot,” Tourigny said. “Most of the time, you either have one warning, or it’s a winger going in. I don’t know what the explanation was; we asked during the game. Seems like they always had a reason to get kicked out.”
Other than those two things, the Mammoth played decent. Goaltending was solid, the team didn’t take many penalties, and they outshot the Flames. They just ran into a great goaltender and couldn’t find a way to beat him.
Mama, I’m Coming Home
After 5,000+ miles and six games, the Mammoth are finally heading back to Salt Lake City. It’s been a long and exhausting trip where the team went 2-4-0. It displayed the best and the worst of the Mammoth. It could be a road trip that is looked back on as a stretch of six games that could’ve boosted the team into the playoffs.
The offense has struggled at times. A big reason is that they’ve forgotten how to use their speed. We’ve seen the Mammoth offense use it to their advantage early in the season, outpacing opponents to the net and finding each other without needing much time. That type of play hasn’t been seen since the long winning streak in October.
“There’s a ton of room for improvement,” Tourigny said. “The puck has to move. That’s the kind of forwards we have. We have forwards with speed, and if we hold onto the puck, that slows down our forwards. We know that we got better during the game. We’ve gotten better since starting the season, but it’s a work in progress for us to have that speed of execution, moving the puck quickly, and moving the puck into speed.”
It seemed like the 7-0 win over the Anaheim Ducks would be the beginning of a new winning streak for the Mammoth, or at least, the end of the careless mistakes they had been making. While the power play and the goaltending have improved, the Mammoth won their game against the Vancouver Canucks just because Karel Vejmelka played outstanding, and then they lost their game against one of the worst teams in the league.
Going home to Utah won’t automatically fix everything. However, it should provide an extra boost to their play. Otherwise, it’s back to the same thing everyone has been saying. The Mammoth know what they have to do. They have to play a certain way to win. It’s time to commit to that.
“There’s a brand that needs to be played in order to win this time of year,” Schmidt said. “There’s a certain style you need to play in order to do it. It takes the commitment in order to do it right. You just have to find whether or not you want to do it or not.”
There’s not much else to say after the 2-0 loss. Inconsistency needs to end. We’re getting to the point where, sooner or later, teams will start getting better and start pulling away from the Mammoth in the standings. We’ve already seen the Edmonton Oilers reawaken. It won’t be long until these losses come back to haunt the Mammoth.
The Mammoth will return home and face the LA Kings on Monday. The Kings are 13-8-7 and are coming off a 6-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. The two teams played three games against each other, with the Mammoth losing each meeting, including the most recent one in April by a score of 4-2.
