It’s Just a Jump to the Left: Blackhawks vs. Mammoth Preview

The Chicago Blackhawks wrap up their season-opening homestand Monday night with a visit from the Utah Mammoth.

The Mammoth are looking for their second straight win to close out a three-game road trip on a high note. In Utah’s most recent game, a 3-2 overtime victory in Nashville, they came back from down late in the third and then secured the win in extra hockey time thanks to Dylan Guenther, who also happens to be their early-season MVP. He’s been in on three of Utah’s four goals so far (2 G, 1 A). Nick Schmaltz — remember him? — is right behind with two goals, and a few others — Logan Cooley, Clayton Keller, and JJ Peterka — have chipped in with a point apiece. The forward group’s got talent and some sneaky depth, but it’s still a bit of a “we’ll see how this jells” situation after missing the playoffs with a similar roster last season.

On the back end, things are a bit less interesting but the group is fine. Mikhail Sergachev remains the standout while rookie Dmitri Simashev (drafted No. 6 overall in 2023) has shown promise since coming over from the KHL. The rest of the defense corps is pretty much solid-but-unspectacular. And they will be down Sean Durzi for at least a month with an upper-body injury.

INJURY UPDATE@utahmammoth defenseman Sean Durzi is expected to miss four weeks with an upper-body injury.

— Utah Mammoth PR (@UtahMammoth_PR) October 13, 2025

The Mammoth lines are somewhat different from the ones they rolled out to start against the Predators. Most notably, Barrett Hayton draws into the lineup after missing the first two games with an undisclosed injury and is slotting into the top-line center role. That pushed Jack McBain down to the third line so the hot second line of Cooley, Guenther, and Peterka can remain together.

Lines from morning skate in Chicago:

Keller – Hayton – Schmaltz
Guenther – Cooley – Peterka
Crouse – McBain – Carcone
Tanev – Stenlund – Yamamoto

O’Brien

Sergachev – Maatta
Schmidt – Marino
Cole – Simashev
DeSimone

— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) October 13, 2025

A starting goaltender was not known after Utah’s morning skate. Karel Vejmelka has played in both games so far, posting a .918 save-percentage on 49 shots. Vitek Vanecek could also get the nod: he signed with the Mammoth as a free-agent this past summer after splitting time as a backup in San Jose (.882 save-percentage in 18 games) and Florida (.890 save-percentage in seven games).

As for the Blackhawks, they’re coming into this matchup riding a three-game losing streak, although all of the games were decided by one goal. The results haven’t been there yet, but the effort has: each game was tied heading into the third period, which wasn’t exactly a theme last year, and the games have felt more competitive overall, making the losses easier to stomach so far. The latest heartbreak came in their home opener, a 3–2 loss to Montreal when the Canadiens scored with just 15 seconds left in regulation. Both teams traded a pair of goals before that.

In the loss, Sam Rinzel scored his first NHL goal and led all skaters with nearly 26 minutes of ice time. Connor Bedard added a goal of his own, and both Frank Nazar and Teuvo Teravainen picked up two assists. Spencer Knight stopped 25 of 28 shots, and the penalty kill went 8-for-10. The game ended up quite scrappy for the Blackhawks, who were involved in several scrums throughout. After the morning skate on Monday, Alex Vlasic clarified that the Blackhawks aren’t necessarily looking for fights, but that they do want to be tough to play against:

Alex Vlasic: "We didn't necessarily say, 'Every game, we're going to go out there and have bunch of scrums.' But I love it. It shows teams that they can't play against the Hawks and have an easy night… We want to be a team that everyone is annoyed to play against."

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) October 13, 2025

Nazar, in particular, has been great for the Blackhawks early on, tallying points (1 G, 4 A) in all three games, Teravainen is second on the team with four points (1 G, 3 A), and Bedard has points (2 G, 1 A) in back-to-back games.

The Blackhawks lines and pairings looked the same at Monday’s morning skate as they did during the game against the Habs. This seems to include Knight as the starter in net and Artyom Levshunov being in the press box. Levshunov did takes some turns with Wyatt Kaiser in place of Louis Crevier, though, so we’ll have to wait to see.

Blackhawks lines in morning skate. Dickinson is participating but doesn’t look like he’ll play. Levshunov looks like a scratch again.

Dach-Bedard-Burakovsky
Teravainen-Nazar-Bertuzzi
Donato-Greene-Mikheyev
Foligno-Reichel-Lafferty

Vlasic-Rinzel
Grzelcyk-Murphy
Kaiser-Crevier…

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) October 13, 2025

However, post-practice, coach Jeff Blashill mentioned there is a possibility Jason Dicksinson (upper-body) will play tonight, but that it will be a game-time decision. If that happens, it feels like Lukas Reichel will come out of the line-up. Where Dickinson would slot is a bit more up in the air: he could easily go back to his original position as the pivot between Ryan Donato and Ilya Mikheyev, but Ryan Greene was extremely good there on Saturday, so Blashill might opt to leave Greene there and place Dickinson on the fourth between Nick Foligno and Sam Lafferty instead.

Jason Dickinson “hopefully” will play tonight, but no official announcement

— Kalen Lumpkins (@kalenalumpkins) October 13, 2025

[UPDATE:] Or as Mario Tirabassi from CHGO Blackhawks, it could be Lafferty that Dickinson replaces.

Sounds like Jason Dickinson is expected to play tonight per Jeff Blashill

Sam Lafferty is likely scratched

— Mario Tirabassi (@Mario_Tirabassi) October 13, 2025

For what it’s worth, Utah took three of four from Chicago last season, so the Blackhawks will be looking to flip that script this time around, in addition to fighting for their first win of the season.