Mammoth’s Nate Schmidt Out Day-To-Day

The Utah Mammoth will need to switch up their blue-line ahead of Saturday’s game against the Ottawa Senators. Nate Schmidt will be held out of the matchup due to a day-to-day, upper-body injury. Schmidt only played in four minutes of Utah’s Thursday loss to the Montreal Canadiens. He took a hard hit from Canadiens’ forward Nick Suzuki in one of his final shifts and was in noticeable pain in subsequent shifts.

Utah recalled Gregor Biber on Friday. The 20 year old will sit out of Saturday’s matchup in favor of Artyom Duda, who has no points and a minus-three through the first two games of his NHL career. The Mammoth are already facing an injury to John Marino, who fell out of the lineup on October 17th with an upper-body injury. Nick DeSimone has filled in for Marino’s hole on the right-side – though Biber is on the cusp of his NHL debut should Utah want to replace either Duda or DeSimone.

Like with Marino, the Mammoth will have no immediate replacement for Schmidt’s impact. The 35 year old continues to do it all – with four points, 14 shot blocks, and 20 hits through 17 games this season. Schmidt has averaged 19 minutes of ice time per game, continuing a trend that began with his first season in Utah last year. The Mammoth will lean on rookies – either Duda or Biber – to make up for that two-way presence until Schmidt is back to full health.