Throughout the entire 2025-26 season and 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Nick Schmaltz had quite the impact. Let’s take a look back at his year!
On the Ice
It was quite the year for Schmaltz, filled with hat tricks, career-highs, and a contract extension. Through 82 games, Schmaltz scored 33 goals and contributed 41 assists for 74 points. He hit the 30-goal mark for the first time in his career, and set new career-highs in goals, points, plus/minus, power play goals (11), shorthanded goals (2), and game-winning goals (9). He also tied his career-high for time on ice (19:43).
After his second-straight 82 game season, Schmaltz has played every regular season game in franchise history. He is the only player on the current roster to achieve this feat.
Schmaltz had plenty of memorable moments including his two hat tricks last season. On Oct. 17, Schmaltz’s three goals and four total points led the Mammoth past the San Jose Sharks, 6-3. On Feb. 2, against the Vancouver Canucks, Schmaltz had his second hat trick of the season in a 6-2 win.
Despite scoring some highlight reel goals, Schmaltz’s most memorable moment of the season was a defensive play in Utah’s overtime win against the Philadelphia Flyers. In the final two minutes of the game, with Karel Vejmelka pulled, Philadelphia’s Garnet Hathaway raced up ice with an empty net in front of him. Schmaltz stripped Hathaway of the puck and kept the game within one. Not long after Schmaltz’s linemate, captain Clayton Keller, scored the first extra attacker goal in the franchise history, and later the overtime game-winner. Without Schmaltz’s effort on that play, Utah would have likely lost the game.
