Mammoth will be aggressive in summer, particularly for centers
The Utah Mammoth, as they have consistently been under general manager Bill Armstrong, have been aggressive in terms of their roster decisions lately.
They added a long-term piece in MacKenzie Weegar in a deadline deal with the Calgary Flames, bringing experience and stability to a blue line that already had plenty of it.
Then on Wednesday, they took care of one of their internal players, locking up center Nick Schmaltz to an eight-year extension, taking arguably the top pending unrestricted free agent left for this July off the market.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and Matt Larkin were joined by NHL insider David Pagnotta to discuss why the Mammoth continue to be a team to watch when it comes to taking big swings when building their roster.
Matt Larkin: I wanted to pivot to the Utah Mammoth. Nick Schmaltz, of course, gets a big contract yesterday, eight times eight. A player I think is pretty underappreciated in this league, one of the better playmakers, I think, in terms of maybe tier-two guys. But I’m curious for you, we have Utah shoring up one of their core players, but this is a franchise that’s now knocking on the door of getting to the playoffs for the first time since the relocation. Are you anticipating some more aggression in the open market this summer in terms of spending, not just on keeping guys, but bringing in more talent?
David Pagnotta: For Utah, absolutely. They were aggressive going into the trade deadline. We know they brought in MacKenzie Weegar on the back end. And they’ve been looking for a guy in that slot since the offseason. They wanted to go after Aaron Ekblad, but he re-upped with Florida, and there was somebody else on the blue line that they were trying to go after, but weren’t able to. So this was a position that they wanted to improve for a while, but they also wanted to bring in somebody in their top six, and preferably a center, which is, I guess, partially why they were so engaged in Robert Thomas. Now Schmaltz is a center, has been playing center, and it looks like they’re going to roll with him for the foreseeable future at center, but they also have the option to slot him on the wing if they need it. Because you’ve got Logan Cooley there, and you’ve got some good kids in the system, but without question, this offseason, they will be aggressive, and they will continue to be aggressive because they have the resources to do it. They have the money to do it, and they’ve got the mandate to do it. Ryan Smith and company that own the club want the Utah Mammoth to be aggressive and as competitive as possible moving forward.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…