With eight games to go in their sophomore season, things are looking good for the Utah Mammoth — even with the games-played finally evening out this week.
The league’s newest team has a firm grasp on the first wild card spot in the Western Conference. For an odd reason, that’s one of the most coveted positions in the NHL this year. More on that in a minute.
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As of Tuesday evening, MoneyPuck gives the Mammoth a 94.7% chance at qualifying for the playoffs, while Hockey Stats gives them 95% odds. Both of those numbers are up several percentage points from the last playoff odds article the Deseret News published on March 17.
A recent hot streak from the Nashville Predators, combined with a few lost games on the Mammoth’s part, gave Utah cause for some concern. But with the Predators now on a three-game losing streak and the Mammoth dominating the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday, the sky has stopped falling.
Who might the Utah Mammoth play in the first round of the playoffs?
If the Mammoth do hold on to play in the postseason, their most likely opponent is the Anaheim Ducks. And they couldn’t ask for a more favorable matchup.
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Look, there’s no such thing as an easy playoff series. The days of bad teams making the Stanley Cup playoffs are long gone. But some opponents are more intimidating than others.
Connor McDavid famously called the Pacific Division a “pillow fight” earlier this month to characterize the lack of dangerous teams in the running. Earning the first wild card spot would mean the Mammoth get to face Pacific teams in the first two rounds (if they make it that far), avoiding the likes of the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild.
The Ducks are at the same point in their rebuild as the Mammoth. They haven’t been to the playoffs since 2018, and the high draft picks in their organization are really starting to break out as stars.
The two teams have met six times over the Mammoth’s two seasons of existence, and they’ve split the wins 3-3.
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Most recently, the Ducks added two empty-netters to turn a 2-1 lead into a 4-1 win. In the contest before that, the Mammoth pulled out a 7-0 win, albeit with three of those goals coming against a goalie playing his first (and to this point, only) NHL game.
One thing that could separate the two teams in the playoffs, though, is the coaches.
Behind Anaheim’s bench is Joel Quenneville, whose name is on the Stanley Cup four times (once as an assistant coach, three times as a head coach). His 121 playoff wins are the third-most by any coach in NHL history.
By contrast, Utah’s André Tourigny has more than 400 regular season games under his belt as an NHL head coach, but his only playoff experience came as an assistant in 2014. He does have an expansive collection of medals from various international tournaments, but even including his 14 seasons coaching in the CHL, he has yet to win a league championship of any kind.
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Obviously, coaching history isn’t everything. The Mammoth have the edge in team save percentage, and their net goals is 30 higher than that of the Ducks. Countless other factors weigh into the outcome of a playoff series, so time is the only way to tell.
Anaheim Ducks goaltender Lukáš Dostál (1) makes a save on a deflected shot by Utah Mammoth center Jack McBain (22) during the first period of an NHL game at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Friday, March 20, 2026. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News