Every NHL player skates with a chip on his shoulder.
Not necessarily in the metaphorical sense (although that is often true, too) — every game jersey has a tracking chip embedded in the back of the right shoulder to measure players’ movement during games. NHL pucks are equipped with similar technology to gauge shot speed.
In 2023, the league made much of that data public.
NHL Edge shows the top 10 players and teams in a wide range of categories. It also shows the league-wide ranking of every player above the 50th percentile, though anyone below that threshold is simply categorized as “<50th percentile” to avoid shaming the lowest-ranked players.
Using that data, here are the areas where the Utah Mammoth excelled in the 2025-26 season.
Skating speed
If you watched any Mammoth games last season, you may have noticed that they play with pace. That’s a common observation of opposing coaches when they talk publicly about their plans before games, and the numbers back it up.
Utah is the fourth-fastest team in the league, per NHL Edge.
The league tracks speed bursts in three categories:
- Above 22 mph
- 20-22 mph
- 18-20 mph
The Mammoth had the fourth-most bursts in every category. Filtering to just forwards, they placed third in every category.
Leading the way was Logan Cooley, who had the fourth-highest top speed in the league last year at 24.38 mph. Above him are arguably the two best players in the league, Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon, as well as a perhaps-unexpected name: Beck Malenstyn.
Cooley’s speed led to some impressive offense last season, but it also caused the injury that kept him out for close to three months after he crashed into the net at full speed in Vancouver in December.
Cooley also tied Roope Hintz and Matthew Schaefer for eighth-most speed bursts above 22 mph with 33.
Speed doesn’t necessarily come to mind when highlighting the best parts of Nick Schmaltz’s and Mikhail Sergachev’s games, but both appeared on speed-related leader boards.
Schmaltz had the seventh-most speed bursts in the 18-20 mph category (822), while Sergachev placed third among defensemen in top skating speed (23.84 mph) and tied for seventh in most speed bursts above 22 mph (7).
Shot speed, quantity and percentage
Dylan Guenther has always drawn comparisons to the NHL’s all-time goals leader, Alex Ovechkin, for his one-timer. He still has a long ways to go before he can really be compared to The Great 8, but he did tie him for fifth-most shots between 80-90 mph among forwards this season with 82.
He also came in two shots below Ovechkin in long-range shot quantity, placing sixth among NHL forwards with 40.
Sergachev’s shot landed him on a leaderboard, too — and just like Guenther, he tied with an all-time Washington Capitals great. His 34 shots between 90-100 mph tied him with John Carlson for the ninth most among defensemen.
Cooley converted on 23.5% of his shots last season, giving him the second-best rate in the league behind only Robert Thomas. There does appear to be a minimum threshold of games played, though, as Kevin Rooney’s 100% shooting percentage didn’t appear on the list.
Shooting percentage tends to regress eventually, so don’t expect Cooley automatically to score on every fourth shot the rest of his career. But part of it has to do with shot selection and having a nose for the net — areas where he undoubtedly excels.
Lawson Crouse likewise showed up on a shooting percentage list. He had the 10th-best midrange success rate in the league at 24.3%.
As a team, the Mammoth ranked seventh in shooting percentage at 11.8%. Again, expect that to regress at some point, but also remember that not all shots are equal and that teams with high success rates are sometimes just good at getting the puck to high-percentage shooting areas.
Penalty kill
Crouse and Kevin Stenlund both cracked the top four in miles skated on the penalty kill among forwards.
That could be interpreted two different ways. On one hand, it suggests that the Mammoth rely heavily upon those two guys to kill the bulk of the penalties. On the other hand, it shows that they have two of the better penalty killers in the league — guys the coaching staff trusts.
As a team, Utah skated the 10th-most miles on the PK. They did spend the ninth-most time short-handed, so that makes sense, but they also spent the eighth-least time in the defensive zone during the penalty kill.
Goaltending
Seeing that Karel Vejmelka played five more games than the second-most-used goalie in the NHL last season, it makes sense that his name would be all over the goaltending charts on NHL Edge.
He ranked:
- No. 2 in long-range shots against (361)
- No. 2 in long-range saves (352)
- No. 3 in 5-on-5 saves (1,250)
- No. 6 in starts above a .900 save percentage (33)
An ideal situation for the Mammoth would see Sebastian Cossa take some of the workload off Vejmelka’s shoulders next season. That said, Vejmelka has thrived with the above-average minutes the last two years, so they might not want to let him rest too much.
