Better luck next year: The Utah Mammoth's window is just starting to open

This team is not far away from being really, really good, and they have some big opportunities ahead of them to get there.

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The Utah Mammoth, formerly known as the Utah Hockey Club, formerly known as the Arizona Coyotes.

Let me start with this: I am down with Utah Mammoth as a team name. Yeti would have been better, but I understand the trademark was going to be an issue (which is stupid, but that’s for another time). If it could not be that, Mammoth is a good Plan B option.

I like it.

I also like where this team is going into the 2025 offseason, because it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where they take a big — and potentially even significant — step forward next season.

Even though it did not produce a playoff berth, the first season in Utah was a pretty significant success, and that started before the team even played its first game. Now that the organization has something that at least resembles a stable ownership that can invest in the roster, they made two big additions to bolster their defense by adding Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino in separate trades.

Then they locked in one of their best young players — Dylan Guenther — to a long-term contract, while also re-signing defenseman Sean Durzi to a long-term deal.

When the puck dropped on the season, they played in a real NHL-caliber arena, in front of full, raucous crowds (this is not meant to be a slight at Arizona fans — I get it) and managed to hang around in the playoff race for most of the season. Even though they fell short of the playoffs, it was still the organization’s best finish in more than a decade by a pretty wide margin.

There was an investment in the roster, Clayton Keller had another huge year offensively and some key young players took huge steps forward, specifically Logan Cooley.

It wasn’t just their position in the standings that improved, either. If you dig below the record and look at how Utah actually performed in terms of scoring and preventing goals, as well as the ability to generate chances, there has been steady and pretty remarkable improvement over the past three seasons with the biggest jump coming this year.

Look at the jump in terms of goals against (GA/60) and all of the expected goal numbers (both for (xGF/60) and against (xGA/60), as well as the differential). During 5-on-5 play they played like a legitimate playoff team, and that was with both Marino and Durzi each missing more than half of the season due to injury.

The actual goal-scoring took a step backwards, but the team also experienced a significant shooting percentage regression that heavily impacted that. The results were not always there, but the process mostly was. That matters.

It also highlights what should be one of the bigger offseason priorities going into this summer.

While management did a great job strengthening the defense a year ago, it needs to make a similar investment in the offense this offseason.

And there are a lot of ways that can be done.

Let’s talk about all of that, and everything else that went right and wrong for Utah this season.

What went right this season