{"id":215844,"date":"2025-09-30T01:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/215844\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T01:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:23:09","slug":"ahl-franchise-peterka-cooley-mcbain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/215844\/","title":{"rendered":"AHL Franchise, Peterka, Cooley, McBain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cole Bagley of KSL Sports reports<\/a> that Utah Mammoth owner Ryan Smith has discussed bringing an AHL team to Utah; however, it is likely years away. In the process, Smith said he and Smith Entertainment Group have considered the best locations in Utah for the franchise, and that somewhere \u201cup north\u201d stands out; perhaps Salt Lake City or St. George.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the ECHL\u2019s Utah Grizzlies (West Valley City) reaching 20 years in the state, the prospect of Utah continuing to grow the game with an additional professional team is an exciting concept. Hypothetically, they would join an exclusive club (California, New York, and Pennsylvania) as the only states to hold a team in all three of the top North American hockey leagues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Such news may raise a few eyebrows of those within the Tucson Roadrunners, the Mammoth\u2019s current AHL affiliate, but only time will tell what the future may hold.\u00a0<\/p>\n

AHL or not, Smith has his eyes on growing the game in Utah, akin to markets such as Dallas, Nashville, and Vegas, which have become youth hockey hotbeds after the NHL came to town. Bagley added<\/a> that Smith\u2019s offer to help build more rinks in Utah has been well received, as he says he has heard from 20 different communities that have shown interest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Finally, Bagley provided injury updates for the club as they wind up for their second season. Key offseason acquisition JJ Peterka<\/a> returned to the ice today, per Bagley,<\/a> having missed Saturday\u2019s practice. The 23-year-old looks to build off a 68-point campaign in Buffalo last year and star for the Mammoth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Logan Cooley<\/a> and Jack McBain<\/a> remain sidelined, Head Coach Andre Tourigny <\/a>told Bagley.<\/a> Neither is expected out long term, but they will not play tomorrow vs the Kings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cole Bagley of KSL Sports reports that Utah Mammoth owner Ryan Smith has discussed bringing an AHL team…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5,402,7040,3751,1522,4,51,5290,232,3154,5291,5289],"class_list":{"0":"post-215844","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-hockey-club","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-injury","10":"tag-jack-mcbain","11":"tag-jj-peterka","12":"tag-logan-cooley","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-utah","15":"tag-utah-hc","16":"tag-utah-hockey-club","17":"tag-utah-mammoth","18":"tag-utahhc","19":"tag-utahhockeyclub"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115290636610572286","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}