Mammoth Build a Three-Goal Lead, Then Barely Survive the Maple Leafs’ Late Storm in a 5-4 Frozen Frenzy Thriller

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2026

Frozen Frenzy is the NHL’s annual argument that too much hockey is exactly the right amount, and on Tuesday, Oct. 13, no game made the argument louder than this one. The Utah Mammoth beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4, building a three-goal lead, losing almost all of it in a frantic third period, and surviving a finish that included a two-man disadvantage and an empty Toronto net before goaltender Karel Vejmelka finally slammed the door, according to The Hockey News and NHL.com, both of which live-covered the night. It was the kind of game the Frenzy was invented to produce: all 32 teams in action on one night, starts staggered across the evening, and at least one building — this one — still holding its breath at the end.

For two periods, Utah played the game the easy way, which is to say the rare way. The Mammoth led 5-2 after forty minutes, and the lead had been even fatter than that: the cushion was built by But, Trocheck and Sergachev. But opened the scoring at 14:55 of the first period, Trocheck doubled the lead a minute into the second, and Sergachev scored shorthanded early in the second period to make it 3-0, The Hockey News and NHL.com reported. Short-handed goals are the sport’s great momentum thefts — the team with the power play is choosing between scoring and regrouping, not defending its own net — and a 3-0 lead built partly on one is a lead that feels stolen in the best sense. Toronto, to its credit, never treated the night as finished. Auston Matthews answered on the power play at 5:16 of the second period to make it 3-1 — his fifth goal in seven games — and from there the game had a pulse again.

The Utah goals that built the cushion came from the names this young franchise is building around. Dylan Guenther scored his fourth goal of the season on a long-range wrist shot to make it 4-1, per The Hockey News and NHL.com — the kind of goal that has become his signature, taken from distance with the confidence of a shooter who does not need to be close to be dangerous. Jack Roslovic answered for the Maple Leafs at 16:29 to make it 4-2 — a goal that mattered mostly because it kept the game within the distance from which third-period storms are launched — and MacKenzie Weegar restored the three-goal margin at 19:20, making it 5-2 and sending Utah into the intermission with a lead that should have been a formality. It remained a lead with an asterisk: a captain’s scoring pace like Matthews’ is one of the early season’s steadiest storylines, and no cushion feels entirely safe against a team that has him.

The asterisk arrived in the third period, wearing a John Tavares jersey first. Tavares scored to start the climb, and then rookie Gavin McKenna scored to make it 5-4, The Hockey News and NHL.com reported, and suddenly the game’s entire geometry changed. A three-goal lead is a strategy: manage shifts, protect the middle, count the clock. A one-goal lead late is an emergency: every clearing attempt is a prayer, every defensive-zone faceoff a small crisis, and every penalty a potential catastrophe. Utah took the catastrophe anyway. Toronto pressed with a two-man advantage and the net empty late — six attackers against a shorthanded, exhausted defense, the most lopsided legal formation hockey allows — and the game came down to the one Mammoth player who could not be substituted or sheltered: Vejmelka. He held on. That is the whole sentence, and it is also the whole story: at the end of a night his team nearly gave away, Karel Vejmelka held on, and Utah escaped with a 5-4 win it will remember far longer than a comfortable one.

Zoom out, because Frozen Frenzy games are not really played one at a time. The format — all 32 teams, staggered starts running from early evening to late night, per NHL.com — turns the league into a single rolling broadcast, and Tuesday’s slate kept delivering reasons to stay on the couch. Colorado beat Dallas 3-2 behind two goals from Martin Necas, in a Central Division heavyweight fight missing half its stars. Calgary earned its first win of the season, 3-2 over Anaheim, the kind of result that releases pressure far beyond two points. Montreal won a shootout over Buffalo in which its shooters went a perfect 3-for-3. And in Nashville, the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Predators 5-2, bouncing back one night after a loss at Minnesota. Our newsroom’s Frenzy coverage is all linked from one place: start with Necas and the Avalanche holding off Dallas, then the Golden Knights’ win in Nashville, Utah’s earlier form in the Rangers-Mammoth game from opening weekend, and Toronto’s next test in the Maple Leafs’ trip to Vegas — with everything else in our sports section.

What does a game like this actually give a team? For Utah, the honest answer is two things at once. The first is belief: the Mammoth built a 3-0 lead, then a 5-2 lead, against a Toronto roster with Matthews, Tavares and real October expectations, and they built it with their best young scorer finishing from range and their defense contributing at the right moment. The second is a warning, delivered free of charge because they won anyway: a three-goal lead in the third period is a test of maturity, and Utah very nearly failed it in public. Teams that survive those tests in October tend to pass them in March. Teams that need their goaltender to stand in a shooting gallery with the net empty at the other end should at least be grateful the lesson arrived attached to two points.

For Toronto, the loss will sting precisely because the comeback was real. Down 3-0 and again down three in the third, the Maple Leafs got goals from their captain, from their veteran former captain, and from a rookie, McKenna, whose third-period goal in a game like this will follow him into every future conversation about his arrival. They forced the exact finish every trailing team scripts — power play, extra attacker, one goal in it — and ran into the one thing scripts cannot guarantee: a goaltender who refuses the last goal. On a night with 16 games, this was the one that felt like a playoff game wearing a Tuesday’s clothes. Frozen Frenzy promises chaos. Utah and Toronto delivered the genuine article.

Correction (October 14, 2026): An earlier version of this story illustrated the game with a photograph of Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. The game was played at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah’s home arena, and the photograph and caption have been corrected. The scoring account has also been corrected: Utah’s first three scorers (But, Trocheck and Sergachev) are now named, the second period is told in order (Matthews, Guenther, Roslovic, Weegar), and a line saying Vegas kept a ‘road streak’ alive in Nashville has been corrected — the Golden Knights had lost at Minnesota the night before.