Utah Mammoth center Logan Cooley (92) looks on during warm ups before an NHL game against the Vegas Golden Knights at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Monday, Nov. 24, 2025. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret NewsBrogan HoustonSun, November 30, 2025 at 5:29 AM UTC·6 min readWhen the Utah Mammoth visited St. Louis on Oct. 23, everything they touched seemed to go in the net. They scored four goals in the first 11 minutes and seven over the course of the game.
But when they returned on Saturday, they couldn’t score even once, as the Blues won by a score of 1-0. Here’s the story.
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St. Louis Blues: 1Utah Mammoth: 0The lone goal of the game came on a connection between two players whose Google searches will forever yield each other’s names in the “people also search for” section.
Dylan Holloway, who scored the goal, and Philip Broberg, who set it up, both went to St. Louis two summers ago via the seldom-used offer sheet.
They’d both played in the Stanley Cup Final with the Edmonton Oilers that spring, and Blues GM Doug Armstrong saw an opportunity to add them to his young corps.
The Mammoth struggled to generate much of anything Saturday. Through two periods, they managed a total of just eight shots. Seven minutes of power play time didn’t do them any good. They needed someone to step up, but nobody did.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“Too many individual mistakes,” said head coach André Tourigny after the game. “We shoot ourselves in the foot on changes and on turnovers.
“We play structured hockey, we do a lot of good stuff, but we need to get over the hump and find a way to win games.”
The Mammoth are 0-2-0 with four stops left on their six-game road trip, which takes them all around the continent. It’s not an easy stretch of games, but it’s an important one.
Tidbits and takeaways
Was it revenge?
They say elephants never forget things. Hockey players are the same way.
A year and three weeks ago, Blues forward Alexey Toropchenko was on the receiving end of a knee-on-knee hit from Utah Hockey Club defenseman Maveric Lamoureux.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementOn Saturday, all this time later, Toropchenko threw a similar hit on Mammoth star forward Logan Cooley.
Maybe it was intended as revenge, maybe it wasn’t — but either way, hits like that have no place in hockey. They can and they do cause long-term injuries that can derail entire careers.
Toropchenko’s hit on Cooley was just as wrong as Lamoureux’s hit on Toropchenko.
Lamoureux received a five-minute major and a game misconduct for his hit last year, and Toropchenko got the same for this one. Lamoureux also had to face a fight from Mathieu Joseph, but Toropchenko got away with just a little scrum.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCooley required assistance to leave the ice Saturday, and he did not return to the game. Tourigny did not have an update on his status afterward.
What’s wrong with the power play?You never want to see someone get hurt, but when you’re down by a goal in the third period and you get a five-minute power play, you must see it for what it is: a golden opportunity.
Unlike two-minute minors, major penalties don’t end when the advantaged team scores. Not only could the Mammoth have used the opportunity to tie the game, but they could have taken the lead, too.
But they didn’t. They struggled to get set up, earning just two shots on net in those five minutes. The best scoring chance during that span was against them, when former Hockey Clubber Nick Bjugstad found himself on a breakaway.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThat shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has followed the Mammoth closely this season. With a 14.1% success rate, their power play is fourth-worst in the NHL — and they have the second-fewest goals in 5-on-4.
A successful power play does two things particularly well: it gets set up in the zone and it moves the puck. The Mammoth haven’t been able to do either with any degree of consistency.
Many of their zone entries are inadvertent dump-and-chases, as they mean to carry the puck in, but they lose control and it ends up in the corner.
They hardly seem to win any of those battles in the corners, which often results in the opponents easily clearing it down the ice with ease.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhen they do get set up in the offensive zone, every pass seems like a major risk. Many of them aren’t crisp enough for the receiving player to handle them well, which results in extra touches and lost opportunities.
Is it a personnel issue? Probably not — they were the 10th-best power play team in the league last season with the same five guys on the top unit.
Is it a systems issue? Probably not — they use the same formation as most of the other teams.
It’s an execution issue. They need to start winning battles in the corners; They need to make better passes; They need to find ways to get to the inside more.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThese are all fixable things. It’s possible that a goal or two could give them the confidence to get back into a groove, but something needs to change, because good teams don’t go 14% on the power play.
It’s not just about hockeyAs a Blues season ticket holder, Clayton Keller grew up going to games with his dad, Bryan, who passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, making Clayton’s return to his hometown more bitter than sweet.
Keller decided to play, as he did on Friday in Dallas. The Blues held a moment of silence in honor of Bryan Keller.
Clayton Keller made a statement after the game, wherein he reminisced on the good times at that arena with his father and his grandfather, thanked the Blues for their gesture and, through tears, thanked his teammates for their support.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementA number of Mammoth fans have donated $9 — Keller’s jersey number — to various charities in memory of Bryan Keller.
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