It’s official: The Utah Mammoth are playoff-bound

The only upset people in the state of Utah right now should be the crews responsible for renovating the Delta Center this summer.

They’ll have less time to do their work, as the Utah Mammoth have officially clinched their first playoff berth in franchise history.

Their 4-1 win over the Nashville Predators on Thursday was half the equation. The Anaheim Ducks took care of the other half, beating the San Jose Sharks in regulation.

The Mammoth still have work to do to clinch the first wild card spot in the NHL’s Western Conference, which would — at least on paper — give them more favorable matchups through the first two rounds as they’d avoid three of the league’s top seven teams.

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“It’s exciting. It’s great for the fans and everyone,” said Mammoth captain Clayton Keller about half an hour before it became official, as the Ducks/Sharks game was still going on, so he couldn’t say it as decisively as he probably would have otherwise.

Keller is one of nine Mammoth forwards who has never played a playoff game with fans in the stands (he and several others made it in the COVID-19 bubble). And, of course, it’ll be the first playoff experience for the majority of the team’s fans.

“You want to play in the postseason. You want to play against the best teams and see what it’s all about,” Keller said.

“I’m proud of the way we’ve fought all year. It’s been lots of ups and downs, times where we haven’t had confidence, times where we’ve been really confident. I feel like we’re doing a good job of kind of balancing both right now and the adversity throughout the game.”

There are still plenty of factors that will determine Utah’s first-round opponent, but if the playoffs were to begin on Friday, the Mammoth would play the Edmonton Oilers.

Firing on all cylinders

A group of Mammoth players has set a new league high for the season.

Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, Nick Schmaltz and Mikhail Sergachev, who are all on six-game point streaks, combine for 58 points over that span.

The previous season high was held by a group of Tampa Bay Lightning players, who combined for 57.

But every time a player or coach was asked postgame Thursday about their dominance, they always directed it back to the full team’s effort.

“You’ve got (Kevin) Stenlund, (Liam O’Brien) and (Brandon Tanev), the other night in Vancouver, scoring a massive goal for us, and then when they’re not scoring, they’re creating energy, and it’s easy to rally around that,” said associate captain Lawson Crouse, who scored his 22nd goal of the season in the game.

“But yeah, the other lines are clicking. It’s been a lot of fun. We’ve just got to keep it going.”

Crouse and the others are right: All four lines are exceeding expectations. Utah essentially has two first lines; The third line is playing like a second line; the fourth line is contributing big goals and lots of energy.

“As a team, we’re connected,” head coach André Tourigny said. “We’re just going by waves. ... There’s no stopping the wheel.”