When general manager Bill Armstrong realized adding pieces here and there wasn’t working for the Arizona Coyotes, he blew up most of the roster.
Armstrong kept the core young players to serve as the foundation for the future and amassed a stockpile of draft picks, hoping to rebuild a franchise that had been mired in mediocrity.
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The incremental climb continued after the franchise moved to Utah, landing a big step with the Mammoth’s playoff berth this season.
A six-game loss to Vegas in the first round was not the ending the Mammoth wanted. They hope it’s just the beginning of something bigger.
“There’s a fine line in our sport between winning and losing,” Armstrong said. “For the growth of our team, we have to suffer a little bit of pain, learn to walk that line a little bit better. If we can do that in the big moments moving forward with this group, we’re going to have a chance of making a run as far as we can to the Stanley Cup. That’s the goal of this organization.”
The goal had been to reach the postseason. The Coyotes did it once since 2012, in the 2020 NHL bubble.
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The Mammoth reached that goal in their first season since moving to Utah, using a five-game winning streak to clinch in early April.
Utah took away Vegas’ home-ice advantage with a win in Game 2 and took the next one in their first home playoff game to take a 2-1 series lead. The Mammoth couldn’t sustain it, losing in overtime and double overtime before the Golden Knights clinched the series with a 5-1 win.
The disappointment lingered over the weekend as they lamented what could have been, but turned to pride as they reflected on what they had done. It also hardened their resolve to not only do it again, but go on deeper runs in the future.
“We had objectives and hit all of them — sometimes a little tighter than we would have wished — but we hit them all,” Mammoth coach André Tourigny said. “We were able to have the consistency we have been looking for a few years, in a sense. That was important for us.”
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The Mammoth have the pieces to keep it going.
Clayton Keller is part of the core from Arizona and has scored at least 76 points in four straight seasons. Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther have transformed from up-and-comers to dynamic players. Crafty Nick Schmaltz is coming off his career-best season, as is goalie Karel Vejmelka. Forward Lawson Crouse has been a veteran presence on and off the ice since the Arizona days.
The franchise also has made key additions in recent years: forward JJ Peterka, defensemen Mikhail Sergachev, John Marino, Nate Schmidt and MacKenzie Weegar. Veteran forward Kailer Yamamoto also finished the season strong after dealing with injuries.
“Looking at the guys we can add and some of the tweaks we can possibly make — maybe it’s a guy from the minor leagues, maybe it’s a prospect — it’s a good spot to be in,” Armstrong said. “You’re not reinventing the board — the board’s there.”
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And more pieces could be on the way.
The store of draft picks Armstrong collected have turned into a loaded prospect pipeline.
The Mammoth used their first draft pick — sixth overall — on forward Tij Iginla, the son of NHL hockey Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla who had 41 goals and 49 assists in the WHL this season. Center Caleb Desnoyers was Utah’s top pick last year — fourth overall — and also thrived in the minors with 33 goals and 55 assists in the OHL.
It doesn’t stop there; Utah has seven first-round draft picks in their system and Armstrong is willing to give them a shot to prove they can play in the NHL.
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“We want to encourage our prospects to try to come in and make our club,” he said. “You don’t ever want to take a dream away from a prospect and you don’t know. Sometimes they can show up and earn their way in. We want our prospects who are probably watching this press conference to know: Come up, come be fighting for a job. There’s opportunity there.”
The Mammoth rebuild hit one big goal. Now they want to reach higher.
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