Utah Mammoth

Offense

Two hundred and fifty-six goals, fourth in the league in shot-attempt share at 53.1 per cent and eighth in even-strength expected goals per sixty. The finishing added 7.3 goals on top, eleventh.

Clayton Keller put up 88 points at five foot ten and was plus-twenty-one at the 92nd percentile. Dylan Guenther scored 40 goals at twenty-three. Nick Schmaltz scored 33 with eleven on the power play at the 88th. Logan Cooley scored 24 in 54 games at twenty-two, taking half his shots from inside twenty feet. Barrett Hayton posted the 94th percentile and Michael Carcone the 94th at five foot nine and undrafted.

Jack McBain takes 63 per cent of his attempts from inside twenty feet, a median of fifteen. This is a deep, young, well-shaped attack in which nine forwards finished above the 68th percentile.

Defense

Eighth in even-strength expected goals against, and the clearest demonstration in this book of why plus-minus should never be read alone.

John Marino was plus-forty-two — and while he was on the ice the five-on-five goals went 66 for and 72 against. Nate Schmidt was plus-thirty-one with the goals 53-64 against him. MacKenzie Weegar was minus-thirty-three with the goals 69-64 in his favour. Three defencemen, three plus-minus figures pointing the opposite way to the five-on-five record underneath them — the difference is special teams, empty nets and overtime, none of which appear in the column beside them.

Mikhail Sergachev played 24:18 a night, put up 59 points and had the goals go 75-55 in his favour. Every regular defenceman finished above the 54th percentile. This is a good blue line whose surface numbers are noise.

Goaltending

The one weak phase, and a heavy one. Karel Vejmelka took 64 games and faced 1,626 shots — second-most in this edition — and stopped .8961. Vitek Vanecek played 22 before leaving for the Islanders; Jaxson Stauber has six appearances.

Against the chances faced, Utah's goaltending came in 6.2 goals worse than expected, twenty-second. On a club that is eighth at limiting chances, that is the difference between a playoff seed and a comfortable one, and Vejmelka is carrying almost the entire load alone.

Power Play

Twentieth at 7.03 expected goals per sixty, on 4:46 a night, eighteenth. Median in both, on a roster that is top-eight in nearly everything else.

Schmaltz led it with 11 power-play goals, Guenther 9, Cooley 6, Sergachev 5. With Keller, Guenther, Cooley and Sergachev available this is a unit that should rate considerably higher, and it is the cheapest place on the roster to find another ten goals.

Penalty Killing

Eleventh at 6.98 expected goals against per sixty, over 5:03 a game — the twelfth-heaviest workload.

Jack McBain's 84 penalty minutes and Weegar's 88 are the cost of the heaviness that makes it work, and Marino, Schmidt and Sergachev take the hard shorthanded minutes. Fourth in attempts, sixth in chances, eighth at both ends and eleventh on the kill: the only thing holding Utah back is a goaltender facing more rubber than almost anyone in hockey.