{"id":470277,"date":"2026-02-24T23:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T23:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470277\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T23:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T23:12:21","slug":"heres-how-utah-mammoths-players-did-at-the-olympics-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/470277\/","title":{"rendered":"Here’s how Utah Mammoth’s players did at the Olympics \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Utah Mammoth sent four players, all of different nationalities, to the Olympics. That means it was impossible for everyone to come home with a medal \u2014 but two of the four isn\u2019t too shabby.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how each of them did.<\/p>\n

Clayton Keller, Team USA<\/p>\n

Mammoth captain Clayton Keller<\/a> is the biggest story. After being left off the 4 Nations Face-Off team last season, he proved to Team USA management that he was worthy of a roster spot at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

While he averaged just 4:46 of playing time per game, he\u2019s not complaining. After all, he\u2019s now an Olympic gold medalist.<\/p>\n

Team USA took a plane back to Miami after the gold medal game, celebrating its win at the iconic \u201cE11even\u201d club, which gained notoriety in the hockey world after the Florida Panthers celebrated their back-to-back Stanley Cup championships there.<\/p>\n

After that, they accepted Donald Trump\u2019s invitation to attend the State of the Union<\/a> address in Washington, D.C. Some players opted to return to their respective NHL teams instead, but a photo posted by a White House communications representative shows 20 players, including Keller, on site in D.C.<\/p>\n

Mammoth coach Andr\u00e9 Tourigny said after practice Tuesday that he \u201cexpects\u201d Keller to be back in time for Utah\u2019s game against the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday, though he did not have confirmation as to whether that would actually happen.<\/p>\n

Olli M\u00e4\u00e4tt\u00e4, Team Finland<\/p>\n

Olli M\u00e4\u00e4tt\u00e4<\/a> joins an exclusive group of male hockey players with multiple Olympic medals. He won his second bronze at this year\u2019s tournament, joining the one he won in 2014.<\/p>\n

M\u00e4\u00e4tt\u00e4\u2019s job is to play stable defense. That\u2019s what has earned him 780 NHL games, two Stanley Cup rings and, of course, two Olympic medals. He did exactly that for Team Finland, and he even chipped in an assist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we were able to turn disappointment to a little bit of a victory today,\u201d M\u00e4\u00e4tt\u00e4 told KSL Sports<\/a> after winning bronze. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy. I think we all expected more coming here. We wanted to win the whole thing … but this makes everything a little better.\u201d<\/p>\n

JJ Peterka, Team Germany<\/p>\n

With a limited amount of NHL players on the roster, the expectations of Team Germany were never high. But they made the most of it, ultimately finishing in sixth place \u2014 above Team Sweden, which featured nothing but NHL players.<\/p>\n

JJ Peterka<\/a> played an average of 20:52 per game. That\u2019s more than every forward in the tournament other than Leon Draisaitl, Tim St\u00fctzle and Zemgus Girgensons. In that time, he managed to score a goal and four points, meaning he factored in on more than 28% of his team\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n

He had nothing but good things to say about his time in Milan upon returning to Utah, emphasizing how cool it was to be in the Olympic Village and interact with athletes from a variety of sports.<\/p>\n

Karel Vejmelka<\/a>, Team Czechia<\/p>\n

Things did not go well for Team Czechia, and Karel Vejmelka did not get to play a single game. But he didn\u2019t let that ruin his time at the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cLifetime experience,\u201d he told the Deseret News. \u201cSo much fun with the team. Like, so much fun to watch the other athletes, meeting them at the village, so it\u2019s, like, a great experience. … It was better than I thought it would be and, you know, nice city, nice place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, he\u2019s ready to get back to work. As mentioned, the Mammoth host the league-leading Avalanche at the Delta Center on Wednesday. Utah has a four-point grasp on its playoff spot, but that gap can dissipate quickly if they let things slip.<\/p>\n

\"\"Finland’s goalkeeper Juuse Saros, right, celebrates with Finland’s Olli Maatta after a preliminary round match of men’s ice hockey between Finland and Sweden at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 13, 2026. (AP Photo\/Hassan Ammar) | AP <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Utah Mammoth sent four players, all of different nationalities, to the Olympics. That means it was impossible…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5,3157,4,51,5290,232,5291,5289],"class_list":{"0":"post-470277","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-news-feed-local","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-utah","12":"tag-utah-hc","13":"tag-utah-hockey-club","14":"tag-utahhc","15":"tag-utahhockeyclub"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116128144417402490","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470277","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=470277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}