We’ll start with the usual disclaimer: Team-wise, preseason hockey means nothing.
Utah Mammoth fans can take solace in that fact as the team lost its initial exhibition game 4-1 to the Colorado Avalanche in Denver Sunday evening. Teams don’t dress nearly full rosters, and that’s especially true for the traveling team — there’s no need to tire out the veterans with extra road trips.
What preseason games do show is how NHL-ready (or unready) individual players are. Here’s what Mammoth fans can glean from Sunday’s game in that regard.
A tale of two goalies
Michael Hrabal drew plenty of comparison to Sebastian Cossa this summer after the Mammoth acquired the latter in a draft-day trade. Both are young guys with huge bodies and promising futures as NHL goaltenders.
Sunday’s game, though, showed how far apart they are.
Cossa, who’s a month away from his 24th birthday, has played pro hockey the last four seasons, first in the ECHL and then in the AHL. His numbers in both leagues are consistent and respectable, suggesting that he was ready for the next challenge of playing in the NHL.
Hrabal, 21, likely has a few seasons’ worth of AHL hockey to play before he gets to Cossa’s level, and it showed at Ball Arena on Sunday.
Cossa saved 11 of 12 shots through 40 minutes of play, sending the Mammoth into the third period tied 1-1 with Colorado. Hrabal then started the third period, and two and a half minutes later, it was 3-1 Avalanche.
The Avs added another goal later on in the period, meaning Hrabal had more goals against than saves. He’s expected to be the Tucson Roadrunners’ starting goalie this season, where he will get more experience at the professional level as opposed to the college players he’s faced the last three seasons.
Goalies typically take much longer than skaters to develop. Cossa has put in the work in the minors, and now it’s Hrabal’s turn to do the same.
(Kind of) an NHL debut
Another player seeing NHL ice for the first time was 2025 No. 4 overall pick Caleb Desnoyers, though he rejected the notion after morning skate that he had truly made the NHL.
“I don’t really consider that playing in the NHL. It’s preseason. Still got to prove lots to play in the show,” he said.
It seemed to take a period or so for Desnoyers to figure out what would work. In the QMJHL, he can carry the puck and make creative plays. When he tried a fancy maneuver entering the zone at one point in the first period Sunday, he was shut down immediately.
While there were a few lesser-known prospects on the Avalanche roster, many of their big names took the ice, including Martin Nečas, Gabriel Landeskog, Devon Toews, Nazem Kadri and Brock Nelson. It’s anything but easy to line up opposite those guys.
By the end of the game, Desnoyers seemed to settle in. At one point, he finished a check and drew a retaliatory penalty to give the Mammoth a power play.
During the power play, he drew another penalty to afford his team a 5-on-3.
Like Hrabal, Desnoyers probably still has a ways to go before he’ll be an NHL star, but Sunday’s game showed how quickly he can adapt.
Remember this name
It can be difficult to accurately judge Russian and Belarusian prospects. The KHL is one of the best leagues in the world, but young players don’t typically get enough playing time in that league to show their true capabilities.
That is, in part, what leads to superstars like Kirill Kaprizov and Artemi Panarin being drafted late or going undrafted altogether.
This isn’t to say that every KHL prospect will turn out to be a 100-point scorer in the NHL, but don’t count a guy out just because he wasn’t a first-round pick.
Yegor Borikov is one of those guys.
The Mammoth selected him in the fourth round of the 2025 draft. He’d scored a respectable 12 goals and 25 points in 67 games for Dynamo Minsk that year, and he followed it up last season with 16 goals and 30 points in 59 games — the fourth-best point total of any U21 player in the KHL that year.
He looked good on Sunday, scoring the Mammoth’s lone goal and playing positionally sound hockey. This is a guy that hadn’t even practiced with the top group in training camp until Saturday, so it’s impressive that he has been able to acclimate himself this quickly.
“I really liked the game of Borikov. He played a solid game,” said Mammoth head coach André Tourigny after the game. “Not just his goal — the way he controlled the puck and the pace he had in his game. That’s positive.”