{"id":553657,"date":"2026-04-16T05:00:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T05:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/553657\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T05:00:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T05:00:23","slug":"golden-knights-will-play-mammoth-in-western-conference-1st-round","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/553657\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden Knights will play Mammoth in Western Conference 1st Round"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Eichel<\/a> led the Golden Knights with 90 points (27 goals, 63 assists) in 74 games, and Mitch Marner<\/a> was second with 80 points (24 goals, 56 assists) in 81 games of his first season with Vegas after he was acquired in a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs on July 1. Captain Mark Stone<\/a>\u00a0had 73 points (28 goals, 45 assists) and Pavel Dorofeyev<\/a>\u00a0led the Golden Knights with 37 goals.<\/p>\n

Vegas has used four goalies this season. Adin Hill<\/a>\u00a0was 10-9-6 with a 3.04 goals-against average, .871 save percentage and one shutout in 27 games, and Carter Hart<\/a>\u00a0was 11-3-3 with a 2.71 GAA and .891 save percentage in 18 games since he signed a two-year, $4 million contract on Oct. 24. Akira Schmid<\/a>\u00a0(16-10-6, 2.59 GAA, .893 save percentage, two shutouts in 34 games) and Carl Lindbom<\/a>\u00a0(2-4-2, 3.00 GAA, .873 save percentage in eight games) also played.<\/p>\n

The Golden Knights finished the regular season on a 7-0-1 run after John Tortorella was named coach on March 29, taking over for Bruce Cassidy.<\/p>\n

The Mammoth are led by forwards Clayton Keller<\/a>, who has 86 points (26 goals, 60 assists) in 81 games, Nick Schmaltz<\/a>, who has 74 points (33 goals, 41 assists) in 81 games, and\u00a0Dylan Guenther<\/a>, who led them with 40 goals in 79 games. Mikhail Sergachev<\/a>\u00a0led defensemen with 59 points (10 goals, 49 assists) in 77 games.<\/p>\n

Goalie Karel Vejmelka<\/a>\u00a0leads the NHL with 62 starts and his 38 wins are second, one behind Andrei Vasilevskiy<\/a> of the Tampa Bay Lightning. Vejmelka went 38-20-3 with a 2.73 GAA and .897 save percentage. Vitek Vanecek<\/a>\u00a0was 5-12-3 with a 2.93 GAA and .883 save percentage in 21 games (19 starts).<\/p>\n

The Golden Knights went 1-2-0 against the Mammoth in the regular season. Eichel had four points (two goals, two assists) in the three games and Braeden Bowman<\/a> (one goal, two assists) and Shea Theodore<\/a>\u00a0(three assists) each had three points. Three different goalies started each of the three games, with Schmid making 25 saves in the only win, 4-1 at Utah on Nov. 20.<\/p>\n

The Mammoth went 2-1-0 against the Golden Knights in the regular season. Logan Cooley<\/a> led Utah against Vegas with five points (four goals, one assist), and Nate Schmidt<\/a>\u00a0had four (one goal, three assists). Keller had three points (two goals, one assists). Barrett Hayton<\/a> (one goal, one assist), Guenther (one goal, one assist) and Ian Cole<\/a>\u00a0(two assists) each had two points. Vejmelka was 2-1-0 with a 1.67 GAA and .947 save percentage in three games.<\/p>\n

The Golden Knights and Mammoth will face each other in a playoff series for the first time. Vegas lost in the second round to the Edmonton Oilers in five games last season, while Utah is in the playoffs for the first time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Eichel led the Golden Knights with 90 points (27 goals, 63 assists) in 74 games, and Mitch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5129],"tags":[149,5317,5,4,74,39,5316],"class_list":{"0":"post-553657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vegas-golden-knights","8":"tag-golden-knights","9":"tag-goldenknights","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-vegas","13":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","14":"tag-vegasgoldenknights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116412627339478744","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553657","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=553657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}