Utah Mammoth’s 2025-26 Roster Projection 2.0: NHL Draft and Free Player – Hockey Writer – Utah Mammoth

It’s been a month since I released my first roster forecast for the Utah Mammoth 2025-26 season. Since then, the NHL introductory draft has been made and free agents have begun. We’ve seen Mammoth use their fourth pick, trade, and sign some players in free agency, all of which has impacted their roster in various ways.

Related: Break down Mammoth’s first day free agent signature

With many of their big moves, let’s take a look at some of the new Utah members, talk about who they lost and shoot what the roster would look like at the start of the season.

The expected mammoth moves forward

For now, Behemoth has 11 forwards in the 2025-26 contract, playing for Utah’s inaugural season (via Puckpedia). They control all 12, including Jack McBain, who is currently an unlimited free agent.

While 12 forwards are enough to accommodate four lines, it depends on McBain’s re-signation with the team, but also includes Liam O’Brien, who played in just 28 games last season. Regardless of whether Mcbain will come back or not, Mammoth is still looking to add a few pieces to fill in the last piece of their lineup.

Since the last lineup projection, Mammoth has added JJ Peterka to its deal with Buffalo Saber. Peterka spent them Josh Doan and defensive player Michael Kesselring, both players will certainly be on the opening squad. However, this is a fair deal on both sides as they desperately search for more offensive firepower, they got more offensive firepower at Peterka, who scored 27 goals in the 2023-24 season and last season.

After joining Peterka before the NHL enters the draft, the Mammoth put their fourth pick in the Caleb Desnoyers draft, which is expected to be a top six player. General Manager Bill Armstrong then got a great signing in free agency and secured Brandon Tanev to help bring some senior leaders to the team. As for players other than Doan, Matias MacCelli was traded to Toronto Maple Leafs, and Nick Bjugstad signed a two-year contract with St. Louis Blues.

With a lot of big sports, let’s take a look at some of the line combinations that Mammoths can leverage this season and look at the holes they still have to fill.

Clayton Keller – Logan Cooley – Dylan Guenther
JJ Peterka – Barrett Hayton – Nick Schmaltz
Lawson Crouse – Hole 1 – Hole 2
Alexander Kerfoot – Kevin Stenlund – Brandon Tanev

other Contract players: Liam O’Brien
Rookie Challenge Roster: Daniil
Restricted free agent: Jack McBin

In my first roster projection, I identified four holes in the Utah forward group. Now Peterka and Tanev are added, but losing Doan reduces this number to two, I also add Kevin Stenlund back to the fourth line. In fact, you can fill the rest with the foreground of any mammoth. However, there is still a lot of time left in the offseason and the mammoth has a lot of room for the upper limit, so why not keep dreaming big until we determine that these potential customers can compete with NHL players?

Hole 1: Third line center

In the ideal world, Haydn will be the team’s third-tier center. However, in the game of drawing the Desnowys fourth and Iginla, who has played in the center in the past, Armstrong went out and spent a lot of money on the center when the Mammoth player was expected to play that role in the following season.

The knock on Haydn was his offensive contradiction. With Peterka signing, a large portion of offensive expectations will be taken away from Hayton, allowing him to focus on the defensive side of the game, which is his real strength. Meanwhile, playing with Peterka may catch Hayton’s attention, which may give him more scoring opportunities. In 2024-25, he finished third in the NHL with the highest chance, the highest chance five-on-five, with fifth-placed goals expected.

While you may wish someone would produce more people on the statistics table, Haydn definitely has a chance to be there. Maybe 2025-26 is the season where he can finally end some chances and develop into a Coyotes picking him as a Wolf after using the fifth pick in the 2018 NHL entry draft.

Holes 2 and 3: Depth Wing

Ideally, the attractions would be filled by McBain and Daniil, but after signing his entry-level contract earlier this summer. But, let’s say McBain leaves another team but is not ready for the NHL. In this case, the Mammoth should look at Victor Olofsson, who is still in free agency, revitalized his career with the Vegas Golden Knights last season and developed some great two-way intuition to accompany his offensive work.

This is also where Desnoyers and Iginla can adapt to the lineup. However, due to Iginla’s injury last season and the recently drafted Desnoyers, it’s hard to know how these players will accumulate in NHL games until the preseason starts.

Expected Mammoth Defender

The Mammoth’s defensive core is almost going to enter the season after trading Michael Kesselring and adding Nate Schmidt to free agents. The biggest change is adding 2023 first-round pick Simashev, who has been standing out in the prospect development camp of Mammoth.

Since the beginning of the offseason, the question about the Mammoth Blue Line has been more about how to use players than people they can add. This is the pairing I projected will use at the start of the season.

Mikhail Sergachev – John Marino
OlliMäättä – Sean Durzi
DMITRI SIMASHEV – Nate Schmidt

Extras: Ian Cole, Juuso Valimaki, Nick Desimone, Maveric Lamoureux

This group is the playoff blue line. Sergachev proved him a true defensive player last season, recording 53 points and ranked sixth in the NHL. I saw him start the season with Marino. Both are excellent hockey motivations that can play tough defensive minutes. Marino is more like a full-time shutdown defender, while Sergachev is an amazing two-way player. Marino next to Sergachev should give Sergachev more free jumps, offensive offense, which he played so many minutes last season and had a weaker defensive partner next to him, something he couldn’t do last season.

In the second pair, you have Määttä, one of the best hockey hounds and hockey promoters in the NHL last season, while Sean Durzi is a high-energy hockey defensive player who starts his evil shot from the point. Both of these are amazing skaters who will be able to effectively eliminate the puck and jump around in a hurry.

Then, at the bottom, I saw Simashev breaking this roster regularly on Cole and playing regularly on Cole, who gave the second biggest free throw against any NHL defender last season. Simashev is tall and can defend and cover a lot of ground. He also has a lot of room for offensive upward. Schmidt is the ideal partner for Simashev to play next to him while he gets his feet wet in the NHL, as Schmidt has played 741 games in his career and has just appeared with the Stanley Cup of the Florida Panthers.

For the extra stuff, the Mammoth is much better than last season. They have Cole, who, despite being one of the biggest damage players in the league, hit the top hit percentage with obstacles last season among NHL defensemen. They also own Desimone, playing some valuable time for Utah last season, while Juuso Valimaki, a former first-round draft pick, is looking for a rebound season.

Last season, Utah entered the season, with not enough depth to deal with the damage. This won’t be the case this season. The Mammoth has 10 defensemen who are capable of playing in the NHL, including Lamoureux, who excelled in his first few games and then was injured.

Expected Mighty Attack Player

The Mammoth goalkeeper will also enter the season as he re-signed Karel Vejmelka later last season and added another piece of insurance to Vitak Vancek after free agent opening. The depth map looks like…

starter: Karel Vejmelka
Backup: Connor Ingram
Additional goalkeepers: Vitak Vancek / Jaxson Stauber

I hope that Ingram will return from the NHL’s Player Aid Program after dealing with his family’s traumatic death in the middle of last season. However, this is still important, but it will be a pleasure to return to the team after completing the 2023-24 season.

As for their new member, Vanecek is a good insurance as an extra goalkeeper. But, assume that the Mammoth must ultimately rely on him to play a backup role. In this case, they may need to continue looking for goalkeepers as Vanecek finished the season with a savings percentage of 0.884 and allowed him to score 0.5 goals on 60 minutes’ expectations. Nevertheless, Vanecek has a range of ability throughout the season.

Mammoth 2025-26 expectations

With this team, the playoffs must be a target no matter how deep they fill. It’s not unfair to expect more development from Cooley, Guenther, Peterka and Hayton. Keller has just entered his career at the age of 26. You have to hope to get more production from Crouse after his recent disappointing season by his recent standards.

Their blue lines can be stacked with any team in the NHL. Like last season, the Mammoth defenders are a talented group, but they will be able to handle injuries better due to their increased depth. The biggest problem for the team entering this season is the goalkeeper. Of course, Vejmelka performed well last season. However, his history before this is enough to speculate whether he can replicate this performance. Apart from the question of who will start as the backup goalkeeper for the Mammoth, can they still rely on if it weren’t for Ingram?

Mammoth is still a young, growing team. But with Peterka’s trade and some excellent deep signings, they will have the best team the organization has achieved in years. While they may not be ready to compete with the Edmonton Oilers or the Dallas Stars in a seven-game playoff series, the Mammoth is closing the gap. After missing only seven points in the playoffs last season, it is safe to say that the reconstruction has ended and the playoff push has begun.