^{Utah faces off against the Blackhawks for the second of 3 meetings in an 11 day span}

Last Sunday, Utah played their final home game before departing on a 5 game road trip. This road trip would see the Mammoth cross the trade deadline boundary. That meant that the team that left wasn’t guaranteed to be the team that came back.

The Mammoth road trip has gone very well so far. A minimum of 6 points in 5 games would have been the threshold to consider this trip successful, and Utah’s managed to get 6 points in 3 games. From here out, any additional points make the trip all the better.

Tonight, Utah faces a rematch against a team well outside the playoff race. It’s a chance for retribution from a brutal loss suffered just 8 days ago.

The Chicago Blackhawks closed out the Utah Mammoth’s homestand in an absolutely brutal way last week. During that meeting, Chicago shut out the Mammoth at home, giving the Delta Center faithful one of their worst games to see in person at the Tundra.

While Utah saw a change in their lineup, with MacKenzie Weegar joining the club and Olli Maatta departing, Chicago had a more significant update. The Blackhawks traded five players since the last meeting. Two of their veteran players, Connor Murphy and Nick Foligno, were instrumental in the defeat in Salt Lake City, with both notching a point – Foligno’s goal effectively the dagger that sealed the deal against Team Tusk.

Tonight’s game marks the second game of a back to back for the Chicago Blackhawks, having surprisingly *nearly ^{*thanks Flo} beaten the Dallas Stars in Dallas yesterday. It also marks the first game of a back to back for Utah, who will play Minnesota tomorrow.

Key points to secure a victory today:
Note: playing three times in 2 weeks means most of the keys remain the same. Instead, I’ll focus on some changes:

Vanecek Tonight, Vitek Vanecek will get his second start in the past week. Opening the back to back with Vanecek ensures Karel Vejmelka plays against the Minnesota Wild tomorrow.

Vanecek has been maligned by some this year for his record, but his stats have been solid. He’s given up 3 goals or fewer in 4 of his past 5 starts, including just one to Colorado to help close out 2025, and a shutout against Philadelphia just the other night.

Over those 5 games, Vanecek’s posted a .918 save percentage and a 2.22 goals against average. While not the volume of Karel Vejmelka’s workload – who played 20 games in that span – Vanecek’s stats are actually better over this stretch than the true #1 for the Mammoth.

Sergachev Mikhail Sergachev has missed the past two contests with a lower body injury. While it’s unknown the extent or severity of the injury, it’s notable that the game against Columbus he was skating until a very late scratch had Nick DeSimone slot in for him. While DeSimone had a good enough game, there’s a massive quality drop without Sergachev driving the offense long term.

While Sergachev may return tonight, look for him to more likely show up tomorrow against the Wild – or at worst return for the home trip against none other than the Blackhawks on Thursday.

Weegar MacKenzie Weegar came as advertised. While likely tired and stressed from a visa issue, the former Flames defenseman made his debut against the Blue Jackets. Without the benefit of a single practice together, Weegar had a solid game playing alongside Sean Durzi in the absence of Sergachev.

Weegar played more than a minute with the penalty kill unit as well, while leading all of Utah players with 23:21 of ice time. It’s likely Weegar would have also been given some power play time, had there actually been a power play awarded to Utah beyond a sub-minute abbreviated play as their only advantage.

With a little time under his belt, expect Weegar to slot in with Durzi again in Sergachev’s absence, and some better chemistry and play moving forward.

Projected Lineups:
Who knows, according to Tourigny, game time decisions will be made. These were the lines last game, maybe a little shuffle to be had.

Clayton Keller — Nick Schmaltz — Dylan Guenther
JJ Peterka — Logan Cooley — Kailer Yamamoto
Jack McBain — Barrett Hayton — Lawson Crouse
Alexander Kerfoot — Kevin Stenlund — Michael Carcone

MacKenzie Weegar — Sean Durzi
Nate Schmidt — John Marino
Ian Cole — Nick DeSimone

Vitek Vanecek
Karel Vejmelka

Game start 6:30 PM on Utah 16 / SEG plus

TUSKS UP!