{"id":402596,"date":"2026-01-12T00:55:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/402596\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T00:55:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T00:55:11","slug":"utah-mammoth-recall-kevin-rooney-place-alexander-kerfoot-on-ir-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/402596\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Mammoth Recall Kevin Rooney, Place Alexander Kerfoot On IR \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Utah Mammoth <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/UtahMammoth_PR\/status\/2010493620760277446\" rel=\"nofollow\">announced<\/a> today that they have placed forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kerfoal01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-11_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Alexander Kerfoot<\/a> on injured reserve. He\u2019s out with an upper-body injury on a week-to-week basis.<\/p>\n<p>In a corresponding move, the club recalled forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rooneke01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.prohockeyrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-01-11_hr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kevin Rooney<\/a> from their AHL affiliate, the Tucson Roadrunners.<\/p>\n<p>Kerfoot left Utah\u2019s Friday game against the St. Louis Blues after suffering the injury. This isn\u2019t Kerfoot\u2019s first week-to-week absence of the season. He underwent core muscle surgery in October and it cost him the start of the season. He made his 2025-26 debut on Dec. 19.<\/p>\n<p>Things weren\u2019t quite right for Kerfoot even after his original activation off of IR. He only managed one goal for one point in nine games, and he only played 10:20 time on ice per game. Kerfoot averaged 15:15 time on ice per game in 2024-25.<\/p>\n<p>A key penalty killer for the Mammoth, Kerfoot has typically been good for steady middle-six production over the course of his NHL career.<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/cdn.prohockeyrumors.com\/files\/2026\/01\/USATSI_27939662-scaled.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-251929\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/USATSI_27939662-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>He scored 45 points in the final season of the Arizona Coyotes in 2023-24, but that production didn\u2019t carry over to Utah as he took on a more defensive role.<\/p>\n<p>Now slated to miss at least a few weeks, the Mammoth will turn to Rooney to fill Kerfoot\u2019s vacated fourth-line spot in head coach Andre Tourigny\u2019s lineup.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old is a veteran of over 300 NHL games and skated in 70 games for the Calgary Flames last season. He\u2019s scored 10 points in 20 games at the AHL level this season and has a goal in his lone NHL contest of 2025-26.<\/p>\n<p>Rooney is playing out a one-year, league-minimum two-way contract, one that carries a $325K AHL salary. If Rooney gets an extended look on the NHL roster as a result of Kerfoot\u2019s absence, that run of NHL games would hold significant financial benefits for the veteran forward.<\/p>\n<p>For Kerfoot, while these injuries are undoubtedly frustrating from an on-ice perspective, the financial implications of the injury are also unfortunate. Kerfoot is a pending UFA, and this injury will now set back his efforts to put together the kind of production fans grew accustomed to seeing from him in Arizona and Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>Now 31 years old, Kerfoot has a chance to be one of the better center-capable players on this summer\u2019s open market. This injury is certainly a setback, but he should still have a chance to return to the ice and string together some quality games to end his platform season on as high a note as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Photos courtesy of Brad Penner-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Utah Mammoth announced today that they have placed forward Alexander Kerfoot on injured reserve. He\u2019s out with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[401,8041,5,402,10738,4,51,5290,232,3154,5291,5289],"class_list":{"0":"post-402596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-hockey-club","8":"tag-ahl","9":"tag-alexander-kerfoot","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-injury","12":"tag-kevin-rooney","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\/115879406783604845","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402596","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=402596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}