The Utah Jazz are clearly doing everything they can to keep their pick in the upcoming NBA draft. Something tells me that next season, we won’t see as many players on the injury report as this season. That means that the core of this Jazz team will play, and it’s clear they’re going to play well. The question is, of the current Jazz roster, who is going to be the most important player next season? Now, Utah may win the lottery and that could change this entire question. If Utah drafts someone like Darryn Peterson or AJ Dybantsa, that changes everything. That said, let’s just ignore the lottery and draft for the sake of this question. If we’re looking at the odds, it’s statistically a little more likely Utah doesn’t draft in the top four of the draft anyway.

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It’s been nearly 13 years since a pass-catcher on the Utah football team finished a season with at least 1,000 receiving yards.

Whether that streak reaches 14 remains to be seen, but if it does, it certainly won’t be due to a lack of talent.

“Y’all gonna see a different room. I promise y’all that,” said senior wideout Kyri Shoels after Tuesday’s practice session. “We hungry, and that’s really how it is. We don’t got too much to say.”

Shoels, who joins the Utes following a productive season at San José State, where he finished second on the team in receiving yards behind only the nation’s leader in that category, Danny Scudero, has to wait five more months to let his actions do all the talking on the playing field.

By that point, the buzz around Utah’s new wide receiver corps could be ineffable. At least, it seems to be trending that way through one week of spring practices.

“It’s a lot deeper than what it usually is,” said quarterback Byrd Ficklin of the Utes’ wide receiver room. “There’s ballplayers all over.”

Media sessions after spring practices are often a prime setting for coaches and players to hype up one another while the stakes are still low as far as public perception goes. But based on the production and skillset of some of Utah’s newest pass-catchers, there’s reason to assume the praise they’ve received early on in spring practice is more than just good public relations at work.

Take Braden Pegan, for example. The California native is fresh off serving as the No. 1 option at Utah State, where he recorded 60 receptions for 926 yards and five touchdowns, including three games with 100-plus receiving yards, and boasts the size at 6-foot-3, 210 pounds, to compete at the highest level in the Big 12. Also, he reunites with his Aggies offensive coordinator, Kevin McGiven, and the wide receiver coach who previously recruited him in high school, Chad Bumphis.

That all sounds good on paper, but what speaks even louder volumes about Pegan’s impact on the team is the fact he’s already earned a spot on the team’s leadership council, which is voted on by the players.

“That’s one of those dudes that you wish you had 20 of them,” said head coach Morgan Scalley of Pegan. “He’s such a good kid, smart football player, athletic, can jump out of the gym. We’re excited to have him.”

Pegan isn’t the only one helping Utah’s returners understand the ins and outs of the team’s new offense. Shoels, who brings an understanding of McGiven’s pass-friendly system with him from San José State, where McGiven served as the wide receivers coach during Shoels’ first season with the Spartans, aids in that transition process as well.

The 6-foot-tall Las Vegas native also possesses an element of speed that Utah’s wide receiver room was missing last season. Coming off a season in which he recorded 13 yards per reception on 59 catches (768 yards total), Shoels should get a lot of passes thrown his way as the potential No. 2 option behind Pegan.

That said, there’s a group of returners vying for meaningful playing time this season as well. Larry Simmons and Creed Whittemore are two players who ended the 2025 campaign on positive notes; Tobias Merriweather, the 6-foot-5 senior who transferred in from Cal a year ago, has an opportunity to strengthen his rapport with Devon Dampier heading into his second season with the team. Daidren Zipperer could work his way into the rotation as well after missing a majority of last season due to injury.

Time will tell whether Mana Carvalho, Utah’s primary kick returner in 2025, and Ricky Johnson, a sophomore transfer from Mississippi State, play their way onto the field in 2026. It’s worth noting the departures of the team’s top three receivers from last season — Ryan Davis, Dallen Bentley and JJ Buchanan — have opened up more playing opportunities for returners and newcomers alike.

With only so many spots to go around, though, there’s not enough room to cram every pass-catcher Utah has into the main rotation. It’s not the worst problem Bumphis and Scalley could have on their plate, though it does make spring and fall camp essential in determining the pecking order for the regular season.

“Everybody, every practice is ready to go,” Pegan said. “We’re all locked in. It’s exciting. I can’t wait to see what everyone does this year.”

It was a close game through the first 30 minutes; however, 11:24 into the second period the floodgates opened. There were several quick momentum shifts as all four goals in the middle frame were scored in a span of 3:40. After Matt Savoie scored shorthanded and put Edmonton up by a goal, associate captain Lawson Crouse’s 20^th of the season evened things up 35 seconds later, 2-2. However, Oilers Captain Connor McDavid’s 400th career NHL goal eight seconds after Crouse’s tally took back momentum for the visitors. Jack Roslovic scored his second goal of the game three minutes later which gave Edmonton a two-goal lead.  

“I thought (the) first half of the game was good, showed some compete and then obviously the power play goal that we tied up was big,” MacKenzie Weegar shared. “Then they scored right after that, and then again quickly right after that, and then I thought we lost the momentum. We didn’t have the energy after that. The compete level in 50/50 battles wasn’t really there either. Definitely something that comes within, it’s not something that you can teach. That’s definitely look yourself in the mirror type stuff, but I trust in this group, and we’ll bounce back the right way.”

“We obviously just didn’t have enough of a pushback, in the third especially,” Kerfoot explained. “We’re down two goals in a game, fighting for a playoff spot against a team who’s also fighting, and we didn’t even make them work for it, didn’t make them earn it. Disappointing. It’s on us.”

Utah was held to 18 total shots and Edmonton blocked 24 of Utah’s attempts. The Mammoth were kept outside due to the Oilers structure, and they needed to get more pucks through to challenge Edmonton goaltender Tristan Jarry.

“Just putting more pucks on net,” Kerfoot said. “Don’t even know about quality. We didn’t even really get many looks. Against a team like that, who kinds of allows you to have a little bit of possession on the outside, you have to break them down by shooting, recovering pucks, getting them out of structure. We allowed them to be in structure way too much.”

 “Your biggest enemy when you trail is you think you want to score, Tourigny said. “So, instead you keep your tank, your energy for to go on offense … you defend because you don’t have the same aggression, you don’t create a stop, you don’t create a hit where there’s a battle then you can recover the puck and go on offense. So, you end up spending all your energy defending instead (of spending) quick energy defensively, recovering pucks, and then you can go on the offense.”

Center Barrett Hayton was hurt on his first shift of the game and did not return. He played 0:17. Postgame, Tourigny said there will be more tests tomorrow and they will figure out “what’s the nature” of his injury.

Utah’s final game in a four-game homestand is on Thursday against the Washington Capitals. Tickets are available here!

Additional Notes from Tonight (per Mammoth PR)

• Tonight was Tourigny’s 400 NHL game as a head coach. He started his head coaching career with the Arizona Coyotes during the 2021-22 campaign, and this is his fifth season as a head coach. 154 of his 400 games have been with the Utah Mammoth franchise. 

• Crouse scored his 20^th of the campaign against the Oilers. He has reached the 20-goal mark four times in his last five seasons. He is currently fifth on the Mammoth with goals.

• Karel Vejmelka played the first two periods before Vítek Vaněček took over for the third period. Vejmelka stopped 11 of the 15 shots he faced while Vaněček turned away all 10 shots he saw in the final frame.

• The Mammoth did not take a single penalty in tonight’s game. Utah is 173-for-219 this season on the penalty kill (79.0%).

• Utah has five skaters with 20 or more goals. They are tied with the Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights for most in the NHL.

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