The NHL released its full 2026-27 schedule Thursday. The Utah Mammoth open the season at home, hosting the Chicago Blackhawks at Delta Center on Thursday, October 1, at 7 p.m. It is the second time in three seasons the franchise starts a year on home ice, and both times the opponent has been Chicago, the team Utah beat 5-2 in its first game on October 8, 2024. The Mammoth have never lost a home opener. Last year, concert bookings at Delta Center forced the team to open on the road, the Deseret News reported at the time. This year, the building, back in service on September 26 after another summer of renovations, is theirs from the start.
After October 1, the Mammoth play six straight on the road, per the official schedule: Columbus on October 3, the Rangers on October 4, New Jersey on October 6, Boston on October 8, Buffalo on October 10, and Edmonton on October 15. They return home on October 17 for the back half of a home-and-home with the Oilers, Connor McDavid's only Delta Center appearance of the season, and host Sidney Crosby and Pittsburgh two nights later.
The Winter Classic comes to Utah on December 31. The Mammoth host the Colorado Avalanche at Rice-Eccles Stadium, with puck drop scheduled for 4 p.m., in what the league notes is the franchise's first outdoor game. It lands in the stadium that staged the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2002 Olympics. Colorado also visits Delta Center on November 18, and the teams meet in Denver on December 14 and March 23.
The season itself is a new shape. Under the collective bargaining agreement that takes effect September 16, every team plays 84 games, two more divisional matchups apiece, 1,344 league-wide, the longest regular season since 1993-94. The league opens September 29, when Carolina raises its second consecutive Stanley Cup banner against Florida, and closes April 10 with all 32 teams playing. There is no Olympic break this time. The All-Star Game returns instead, on February 5 and 6 on Long Island, after two years of international tournaments in its place.
Utah enters the season off its first playoff appearance, a Western wild card that ended against Vegas in six games, and general manager Bill Armstrong spent July retooling around it. The Mammoth traded for Rangers center Vincent Trocheck on July 1, sending defenseman Sean Durzi, prospect Cole Beaudoin, and a 2027 third-round pick to New York, and signed Anders Lee, the Islanders' captain for the past eight seasons, to a three-year deal at $5.4 million per year. Days earlier, Armstrong traded a 2026 first-round pick for goaltending prospect Sebastian Cossa. Armstrong told KSL Sports the aim was net-front presence after the departures of Alexander Kerfoot and JJ Peterka. Trocheck, who removed Utah from his no-trade list to allow the deal, explained the appeal at his introduction in Sandy last Friday: "There are no moral victories."
There was also the matter of Barrett Hayton. The New Jersey Devils tendered the restricted free agent a one-year, $4.775 million offer sheet on July 1, a move that followed Utah reportedly backing out of a draft-day trade that would have sent him to New Jersey, KSL Sports reported. Utah matched on July 8, keeping a 26-year-old center who scored 25 points in 67 games last season and passing up the second-round pick the Devils would have owed as compensation. A matched offer sheet cannot be traded for a year, so Hayton will reach unrestricted free agency next summer unless the two sides agree to an extension, which they can begin discussing on January 1. "I'm fired up to get back with my teammates and remain in Utah," Hayton said in the team's release. The schedule wastes no time on that one. Utah plays in Newark on October 6, five days into the season.
