{"id":496585,"date":"2026-03-10T14:06:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/496585\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T14:06:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T14:06:31","slug":"utah-mammoth-lose-3-2-in-ot-to-chicago-blackhawks-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/496585\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Mammoth lose 3-2 in OT to Chicago Blackhawks \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Blackhawks have second-worst record in the NHL, but in the three times they\u2019ve faced the Utah Mammoth this season, they\u2019re undefeated.<\/p>\n

That comes with their 3-2 overtime win over the Mammoth on Monday, which saw Frank Nazar redeem himself with the game-winning goal shortly after fumbling the puck on an extended breakaway.<\/p>\n

Although the standings don\u2019t reflect it, the Blackhawks have come leaps and bounds since last season. After a 5-2 loss in Utah\u2019s inaugural game and a 2-1 loss in Salt Lake City in the final week of February, star defenseman Seth Jones publicly voiced his frustration<\/a> at how little progress they\u2019d made over the four and a half months between those games.<\/p>\n

Five days later, the Blackhawks traded him to the Florida Panthers. It worked out for him, as he ended the year with the Stanley Cup in his hands \u2014 and it\u2019s slowly, but surely working out for the Blackhawks.<\/p>\n

This was the second of three meetings between these teams over a 12-day span. The Mammoth will have the chance to get one back at the Delta Center on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can skate with us \u2014 there\u2019s not a lot of teams who can skate with us,” said Mammoth head coach Andr\u00e9 Tourigny when asked why the Blackhawks have had so much success against them this year. \u201cThat is where we need to dig deep and go deeper, and we didn\u2019t do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In less than 24 hours, the Mammoth face the Minnesota Wild, against whom they\u2019ve had the opposite luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going to come with a good push,\u201d said Dylan Guenther in anticipation of the matchup. \u201cWe\u2019re on a back-to-back, so I think just how smart we are and how we handle the first five, 10 minutes will be important.\u201d<\/p>\n

30 for 11<\/p>\n

Guenther scored his 30th goal of the season on Monday, tying Clayton Keller \u2014 who set him up for the goal \u2014 for the single-season franchise record. And with 18 games to go, he\u2019s probably far from done.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the remarkable thing, though: Guenther is one of 25 active players to score 30 goals in his 22-year-old season. And, again, he still has plenty of time to climb further up that list. If he continues scoring at his current pace, he\u2019ll end up with 39, which would tie him with Nathan MacKinnon for sixth-most at that age.<\/p>\n

But his focus this season has been on diversifying his game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of what\u2019s gotten me into the league, is being able to score, and I think that I\u2019ve rounded out my game and become a more complete player,\u201d Guenther explained after the game. \u201cBut that\u2019s still what I\u2019m good at and it\u2019s nice to contribute that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while his shot is among the best in the world, he has been finding different ways to score, too. Opponents can anticipate and therefore neutralize his power play one-timer, so scoring from other places is necessary.<\/p>\n

Tourigny agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I like about Gunner this year is he has more ways to do it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just his shot \u2014 he has more than that. He\u2019s playing good lately. Since the start of the trip, I\u2019ve liked his game.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bit Nicked up<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one guy who had reason to worry after the MacKenize Weegar trade<\/a>, it\u2019s Nick DeSimone. The addition of another right-shot defenseman means someone has to sit, and DeSimone is the natural choice.<\/p>\n

But the trade happened just as Mikhail Sergachev went down with an unspecified lower-body injury, allowing DeSimone to stay in the lineup \u2014 and for the Mammoth\u2019s sake, it\u2019s good that he was there.<\/p>\n

Despite being notified 15 minutes before puck drop that he was playing on Saturday, DeSimone went out and set Guenther up for a highly important goal. And he got his name on the score sheet for the second consecutive game on Monday, firing the shot that Barrett Hayton tipped for the game\u2019s opening goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks, Sergy,\u201d he joked in Columbus after being presented with the game hat, Utah\u2019s internal player of the game award.<\/p>\n

The life of an NHL seventh defenseman is, by nature, day-to-day. But whether DeSimone plays 10 games in a row or sits out for a month straight, his job is to be ready when his name is called. And he\u2019s been exactly what the Mammoth have needed.<\/p>\n

Does DeSimone make highlight-reel plays every game? No. But he\u2019s positionally sound; He\u2019s rarely at fault for goals against; He works hard every day and he never complains. Every team could use a few guys like him.<\/p>\n

As for Sergachev, it doesn\u2019t seem too serious, given how uncertain the team was at whether he\u2019d be good to go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Blackhawks have second-worst record in the NHL, but in the three times they\u2019ve faced the Utah…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5115],"tags":[521,37,96,5263,5,3157,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-496585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-blackhawks","8":"tag-blackhawks","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-blackhawks","11":"tag-chicagoblackhawks","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-news-feed-local","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116205268908350575","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496585","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=496585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}