State of the Utah Mammoth: In conversation with GM Bill Armstrong
Is it finally happening for the Utah Mammoth?
Since the franchise, then the Arizona Coyotes, named Bill Armstrong GM in 2020, the momentum has slowly built. The nine first-round picks from 2021 to 2025 helped, as did the change in ownership with the move to Salt Lake City – and the two ensuing offseasons in which Utah made some splashy trades and signings.
Last season, as the Utah Hockey Club, the team improved from 77 to 89 points. Early in 2025-26, the Mammoth hold a 9-5-0 record, which was good for third in the hyper-competitive Central Division through Wednesday’s schedule.
Will the Mammoth break through and make the playoffs? Will they adopt an aggressive buyer posture as the Trade Deadline approaches? And what has life been like under new ownership and with a state-of-the-art new practice facility? Daily Faceoff sat down with Armstrong this week in Toronto during the team’s road trip to discuss these questions and more.
DAILY FACEOFF: At one point last December, the club was 16-11-5. So you had a lot of momentum, and it felt like maybe the playoffs were going to happen. And they didn’t, but you still improved by 12 points. Yet I watch the team this year, and I think it’s different. The vibe is different. Do you believe that? Or is it dangerous to believe that?
BILL ARMSTRONG, MAMMOTH GM: No, it’s not dangerous. I do. I think you go through things as a team and you learn. Sometimes your schedule slants where you’re playing non-playoff teams in a row and you get on a win streak, or you’re at home or you run into teams that aren’t playing well and you accumulate wins. And that’s part of everybody’s existence in the NHL. So sometimes it can be misleading when you get off to quick starts or if you play, you just get the right roll of teams coming through, and you’ll wax them. But I feel like this year we’re a little bit more stable. We’ve got some bigger guns to finish the scoring. And I think our defense is probably a little bit more polished and finished off than it was last year. So adding the Nate Schmidts and Dmitri Simashevs of the world has made us a better team.
We still need to push. We’ve got to get the team across into the playoffs. That’s going to be a tight one, but I believe this group can do it and I believe there’s more experience now. There’s nine Stanley Cups in that room.
DFO: A quick anecdote on getting used to Utah as a market. A year and a half ago I do a radio show. They ask me, “For the draft: what do you think about top prospect ‘Connor Macklin?’ I’m like, “Oh, jeez, these poor guys are mixing Bedard and Celebrini’s names.” It was like teaching hockey 101. Bless their hearts, I didn’t want to embarrass them. A year later I do the same show, and they’re on the ball, they know all about the team’s prospects and they’ve clearly learned a lot. So for you, what has it been like transitioning to a new hockey market, and do you notice a change so far? Whether it’s interactions on the street or just the fans themselves in the building.
ARMSTRONG: We started off in a huge winning streak and the buzz was huge. People are really excited about our team. The youngness of it, the way we play and the fact that we’ve been able to stack some wins on top of each other. And they’re hungry for hockey in Utah. They’re hungry to learn about it. They love coming to the games because of the speed of it, and our crowd is so intense. So it’s pretty unique, and I think people are almost addicted to it in Utah, which is a great thing for hockey.
DFO: And for you, in terms of different forms of ownership you’ve dealt with – Ryan and Ashley Smith, they seem, at least to the outsider, like they’re fairly hands-on, but not in a bad way, just that they seem to care a lot about winning. What has that experience been like, and would you describe them that way?
ARMSTRONG: Yeah, I would. They’re very involved, and I think that’s a great thing. They have set out on a path – when you talk about their involvement, it’s also the care of the players. They’ve done an incredible job of helping the organization take that next step into an elite organization with an incredible rink to play out of, but also an elite practice facility that was built in 12 months, which is incredible, just unbelievable. It’s state of the art, and they’ve really done a great job at making it become an elite destination.
And Utah is beautiful, just beautiful on its own with the mountains. It’s got great taxes. It’s a friendly place to live. People are super friendly. And I’ve always felt like the people there have a respect for you if you’re out for dinner or something like that. They want to say hi, but they’re not going to bother you. And it’s been a really good fit for hockey, and Ashley and Ryan have done a great job ushering that in.
DFO: So I’ve read about practice facility, and just it seems amazing; the trait that blows my mind is the player tracking to monitor their fatigue and their exertion and all that stuff. But for the layperson, the average casual fan, how would you describe it to them in terms of what advantages you get as an NHL team from a good practice facility versus a subpar one?
ARMSTRONG: That’s a great question. It allows us to practice at a high pace where we can change ice surfaces really quickly and you’re not waiting for them to flood and your players get cold on the bench. Instantaneously, you can go to the next rink and practice on a good sheet of ice and practice power play and go back and forth. Or the simple fact that you can start practice on two sheets where you get your goaltenders doing their drills, you get the D-men doing their drills and your forwards are doing the drills on the other ice and skill drills. It really gives you reps, it’s fast paced, it just puts you at a different standard than probably the majority of teams in the National Hockey League.
And that’s not even mentioning the state-of-the-art dressing room and training facility. It almost looks like a spa to some degree, but I think it also gets your players in a place where they want to hang out. They want to go to the rink. That’s a positive thing of getting your players together. I think our culture is all about working out, it’s improving, it’s all about developing your skills. So this just feeds you right into it.
DFO: When I look at the deals you’ve been able to lock up, whether it’s for Dylan Guenther, whether it’s for Logan Cooley and then JJ Peterka when he came over, all these long-term deals that are signed…How do you strike the balance between wanting to get your best young players locked up for their primes but also not wanting to, for example, be in a situation that Ottawa was in until last year, where you have all these players tied up in long-term deals but they haven’t rewarded you yet with a playoff run? Buffalo is the same. You want to reward your players but not reward them for what they haven’t done yet, either.
ARMSTRONG: Right. It’s very risky locking a player down because of the simple fact that their performance might not keep growing and getting to their full potential and then you’re locked into a huge deal. There is some risk, but there’s also a lot of risk if you don’t lock the player down. And so as a GM, you battle that back and forth. I think you have to make a decision and you’ve got to know it in your heart about the person, number one. Do they love hockey? Do they want to win? Do they want to be a part of the team? And what’s their potential going to reach? And once you come to that conclusion, you’ve got to pull the trigger quick.
At first, when I was a young GM, I would really worry about those decisions because they’re important decisions. And I still worry about them, but I think it’s also when it gets locked into your heart and in your eyes, what you feel about what that young player is going to become, you have a good confidence. It’s no different when you get to the draft podium and you’re going to take somebody. If you do your research well and you meet the family and you know everything about the player, you feel good in your heart about it, and I take that same approach in signing long-term deals with players.
DFO: There’s been kind of a shift league wide compared to let’s say, 10 years ago, when guys were getting their big free-agent money when they’re 28, 29 and they’re getting paid for the 30s, getting paid for what they’ve already done. Whereas now it seems like so many players are getting paid for what they’re going to do, which I think is really smart. You’re seeing more of these long-term deals and people projecting performance with what they give guys in their primes. Is that a thing GMs talk about: “This is the new ecosystem and this is how everyone’s doing it”?
ARMSTRONG: I think it goes back and forth, because there are some guys that still get paid at the end and the Nazem Kadris of the world that are still producing, they’re pretty impressive, those guys that play past a thousand games or into a thousand and still are very productive NHL players. But I also think that where our team is at, we’re fortunate that we aren’t at the end of signing that final free-agent piece that’s going to lock it down and say, OK, we’re going to live with his last three or four years because we’ll be in our championship window for his final good years. We haven’t been there yet, so we’ve kind of stayed away from that in the ecosystem. I’m sure we’re going to get to that. But right now we’re fixated on just the ages of our players and trying to move them along and get the right players. That way we’re not at the end of it stuck with somebody that makes a whole bunch of money but can’t play.
DFO: It was a 2020 when you first got this gig, five years ago. And I don’t want to say you were sitting on your hands, but it was a rebuilding team. You had to accrue prospects and draft capital, right? And the last couple offseasons, you were trading for Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino, and then of course this summer, it was Brandon Tanev and Nate Schmidt and JJ Peterka coming in. How exciting has it been for you, and how hard was it to stay patient in those early years where you were having to build up first?
ARMSTRONG: Well, when you’re going through that, you’re taking savage beatings [in the standings], right? And that’s the hard part, sticking to the plan and getting through. And then when you get to the end [each season], sometimes you don’t win the [Draft] lottery and it’s disappointing, but each year there was a small win where you show up at development camp and you’ve got the Cooleys and the [Maveric] Lamoreuxs and the [Conor] Geekies. And you’re accumulating and you’re seeing what they can become, and then the Guenthers are coming in and having success. So it’s really the small wins that you stay patient on, and now we’re getting to the point where we’ve stayed true to the plan, we haven’t changed, and I think the reason we’re having success with our team is that we’ve stayed to the plan, which is draft, develop and put them in the lineup.
DFO: There’s a term I always use: the critical mass. Especially in the cap era, I feel like every team has a contention cycle. And when you accrue a certain amount of assets in terms of prospects, you can only put so many of them into your lineup eventually and then you’re in a position of power where you can start to move them. Would you say you are getting to that position where, let’s say a prospect who’s not in the lineup right now, I’m not going to make you name names, but are you getting close to the point where, “OK, we can put draft picks in play. We can put some prospects in play if we’re trying to bring in some veteran talent”?
ARMSTRONG: We’ve always look at what’s best for the team. And there’s some really good prospects that end up playing for us, and there’s some really good prospects that will end up moving on. It happens. That’s a part of, as you call it, the ecosystem. No different when we were trying to acquire Ryan O’Reilly [when Armstrong was the St. Louis Blues’ assistant GM and director of amateur scouting]. We were moving out Tage Thompson. That does happen as part of the plan to get to the next step and really elevate your game. And we’re obsessed with trying to make that next step and get better.
So yes, it’ll be a part of the process. Probably one of our draft picks comes into the lineup and plays for us and has a huge impact, and maybe we use picks and assets to go get a player.
DFO: I don’t know if it’s too early now, but do you have a sense yet of what you think the 2025-26 team’s needs are if you’re going to eventually wade into the market?
ARMSTRONG: Yeah, it’ll be an interesting process as we go through the year. We’ll take the year to identify, hey, what do we need, and what young draft prospect can come in and help us? There’s a Danil But that can jump in and play right away, and he’s had a heck of a start in the American league, so is it him? Is it Tij Iginla? Is it Cole Beaudoin? Is it Lamoureux? Michael Hrabal? It’s a good problem to have.
DFO: The idea that you get to maybe be a buyer team as you get to the Trade Deadline is, I don’t want to say the first time ever, as you’ve gotten to be in that posture in the summer at least, but I assume that’s an exciting prospect.
ARMSTRONG Oh, yeah, it is. And listen, there’s always a certain player that can be out there, whether it’s a [2026 version of] a Noah Hanifin or a Seth Jones or whatever. As a team, you have to be going in the right direction, but if we are that term that is going in the right direction, I think we do have the assets to improve the club if it’s the right deal.
DFO: So now, I assume the expectations for this team are going up, especially after the 12-point improvement last year. So what happens if you do fall short? That’s a hard question, I know, but what does it mean for this franchise? How big of a disappointment would it be? Or is it not yet because you’re still relatively young in your development as a team?
ARMSTRONG: Well, I’d put it in this way: If it’s due to injury or something that we couldn’t control like Calgary had, where you get 96 points and you don’t get in, or it’s due to us being banged up, then that’s something that you have to move forward with.
Colorado in their days, they were a pretty good team and they had some setbacks along the way and they rebuilt. So you can identify that and keep moving forward. I think if it’s because the team doesn’t play well, then you have to identify that and make some changes too. Our goal internally is a lot higher than what people [believe] on the outside. We’ve always created a lot of internal pressure on ourselves to be the best and set high standards on the inside of the organization. I always feel good when people say, “Well, what if he doesn’t get here?” Our plans are to push as hard as we can to make that next step and that’s getting in the playoffs. It’s not an easy division, but we do feel like we have enough talent and we can push.
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