How the Utah Mammoth turned their season around

On Dec. 11, the Utah Mammoth had a losing record of 14-15-3 and were out of the playoff race. Rising star Logan Cooley went down with a major lower body injury the week before and things were looking bleak.

Fast forward to now, and the Mammoth have improved to 28-22-4 and own the first wild card spot in the Western Conference with 60 points. Player availability and output have continued to fluctuate, but Utah has found a way to simplify its game and get results.

Credit head coach Andre Tourigny, who is on track to improve his team’s record for the fifth year in a row — three seasons in Arizona and two in Utah — and reach the playoffs for the first time in his career.

“I think we’re in a stretch where we know what we have to do,” Tourigny said after a recent win over Nashville. “We try not to complicate everything. We try to simplify, simplify, simplify. I think we need to keep going that way.”

The win in Nashville on Jan. 24 capped off a five-game win streak for the Mammoth and an extended stretch of eight wins in nine games. For comparison, Utah won just four games the entire month of November and six in December.

A major home matchup against Central Division playoff rival Dallas on Saturday provides the opportunity for the Mammoth to nearly double their win total from December.

The offense has been humming, for the most part, in January, scoring five or more goals five times so far, despite the absence of Cooley, who remains in the top five on the team in goals.

Leading goalscorer Dylan Guenther recently went down with a lower-body injury himself, but Utah found a way to keep the momentum going, earning a 4-3 road win over the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers on Tuesday.

“We’re shooting the puck more,” defenseman Ian Cole said of the offense on Monday. “It’s been a more direct mindset, which is how a lot of goals are scored in the NHL. A lot of goals are scored putting pucks to the net, winning net-front battles and getting traffic.”

It’s been an attack by committee mindset for the Mammoth this month, with 12 different players scoring goals in January, including Lawson Crouse and Michael Carcone reaching double-digit goals on the season after underwhelming campaigns a year ago.

Some of the turnaround almost certainly has to do with how the schedule came together for the Mammoth, with four back-to-backs in November, two in December and just one in January.

Utah also faced tough opponents like Las Vegas and Colorado in November and December, but January’s slate has featured its fair share of contenders, including Tampa — which handed Utah one of its three losses this month — and Dallas twice.

A meeting with Dallas — which sits at 71 points and one spot ahead of Utah in the Central Division — to end the month provides a legitimate test of just how far this team has come since falling below .500 seven weeks ago.

A pair of home games next week against Vancouver and Detroit to kick off February are the final games for the Mammoth before the Olympic break, when Clayton Keller (USA), JJ Peterka (Germany), Karel Vejmelka (Czechia) and Olli Määttä (Finland) leave for Milan, Italy.

The schedule picks back up on Feb. 25 against league leader Colorado for the mad dash home stretch to the playoffs at the end of April.

Cooley has been seen skating in a noncontact jersey at Mammoth practices this week, perhaps signaling a return to the lineup at some point in February.