The Utah Mammoth now know the full road map for 2026-27, and it starts with a familiar face. The NHL released the complete schedule Thursday morning, giving Salt Lake City a clear look at a season that opens Oct. 1 at the Delta Center against the Chicago Blackhawks.
That home opener comes at 7 p.m. MT, and it marks the second time in the Mammoth’s first three seasons that Chicago will be on the other side of Utah’s first game on home ice.
The Blackhawks were there for the franchise’s inaugural home opener in 2024, when Utah rolled to a 5-2 win. The Mammoth are 2-0-0 all-time in home openers after also beating the Calgary Flames to begin the 2025-26 season.
The first stretch of the schedule is heavy on travel. Right after the opener, Utah heads out on a five-game trip that runs through Columbus, New York, New Jersey, Boston and Buffalo.
And that’s just the beginning of the early grind. The Mammoth will play 13 of their first 20 games away from Delta Center, a tough opening quarter that keeps them on the move.
Their longest road swing comes in early November, when they’ll visit the Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators and Vegas Golden Knights.
One of the season’s biggest dates lands on Dec. 31, when Utah hosts the 18th NHL Winter Classic at Rice-Eccles Stadium. The opponent is the Colorado Avalanche, setting up a Central Division matchup in one of the league’s marquee events. The game will showcase Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther against Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Gabriel Landeskog.
January is where the schedule settles in at home. The Mammoth will play 24 of their 42 home games in the second half of the season, and their longest homestand arrives from Jan. 23 to Feb.
- That six-game run brings the Boston Bruins, Minnesota Wild, Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals and Nashville Predators to Delta Center.
Utah closes the regular season with four home games in April before finishing on a two-game road trip against the Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues. That completes the Mammoth’s 84-game schedule.
According to the team, tickets go on sale July 17, 2026, at 10 a.m.
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Dylan Larkin Trade Buzz Keeps Hitting The Same Frustrating Wall
Dylan Larkin is still in Detroit, and the trade chatter around one of the NHLs biggest names on the market keeps running into the same problem: there has been no deal to finish the job. The Red Wings center has been linked to a move for a while, but his no-trade clause has narrowed the field to a short list of preferred destinations, leaving any potential talks to work through a tight set of options.
Among the teams still in the mix, Minnesota has been the one most often connected to the conversation, while Utah is no longer a realistic landing spot because of salary-cap limits. Even with those lanes narrowed, nothing has come together yet, and the longer Larkin stays put, the more this feels like a situation waiting for one team to finally make the right move. [Read more 🡒]
Utah Made One Deadline Choice Coyotes Fans Will Be Debating All Summer
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Elliotte Friedmans reporting only sharpened the debate by underscoring how expensive a bigger swing would have been. Utah kept its top prospects intact, and even with the sting of an early playoff exit, there is a strong case that holding those chips was the prudent move. The frustration for fans is obvious, though, because once a team gets that close to adding another impact piece, the question of what might have been tends to hang around all summer. [Read more 🡒]
