NHL Rumors: It Looks Like This is the Season for the Utah Mammoth to Take the Next Step

The Utah Mammoth are near the top of the Western Conference. Is it time to take a serious run and move some draft capital?

Daily Faceoff: Jeff Marek on Daily Faceoff Live talking about the Utah Mammoth, and if they’ll be looking to add. Is now the time to start moving out some picks and add NHL bodies?

** NHLRumors.com transcription

Carter Hutton: “I want to, I want to change topics here, Jeff and I want to get into the Utah Mammoth. You had a chance to chat with Bill Armstrong the other day, and again, this is a team sitting on top of the Central Division where, you know, we thought this team, I think everyone, as we predict in the media world, as we analyze, we thought this was a team that’s going to take a step forward. And they’ve taken a big step forward with their youth, with their talent, their goaltending.

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You know, where do they go from here? Is it status quo? Are they just letting these young guys run with it after you talk to Army?

Marek: “I don’t think that Bill Armstrong is done for one second. I fully believe that if Aaron Ekblad would have gone to market, Utah would have been one of the teams knocking on his door. I mean, I think we all would have thought that Detroit would be on that list too, but I really suspected that Utah would offer him big money, and all of a sudden, your top pair is Aaron Ekblad and Mikhail Sergachev. It’s the uniting of the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Would make for quite the story.

But I don’t think, I don’t think that Bill Armstrong is done. I think that right now, perhaps more so than ever, he’s looking at, you know, this murderer’s row in the central. And listen, Dallas is going to be fine. We all know that about Dallas. Colorado is still going to be a juggernaut, and the Winnipeg Jets, ditto.

But I think that you know, the Utah Mammoth and Bill Armstrong are looking at the division right now and saying there’s probably Minnesota. They can’t play five-on-five. There’s maybe even bigger problems with the St Louis Blues and those two goaltenders, and we saw against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Specifically, Joel Hofer, is really hard to hit.

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So if they’re going to take themselves out of this, you ask, who’s going to fill that vacuum? And right now, the Utah mammoth are the team that’s saying, if you’re going to leave all these points on the table, we’re going to gobble them up like Pac Man. You want to give up that spot, we’ll take that spot.

And I don’t think that Bill Armstrong is going to going to sit back and just say, ‘You know what? It’s going to be another development year for (Logan) Cooley and, and (Dylan) Guenther and Jack McBain‘ and all these, I don’t think so. Dmitry Simashev, I don’t think he’s looking at that and saying, ‘Yeah, we’re just gonna, we’re just gonna step back and see where the kids go.’

I think this is going to be an aggressive general manager and a really aggressive Utah Mammoth team all season long. I don’t think they’re done, not at all. Do you?

Tyler Yaremchuk: “I don’t think they can be. Like when you look at all the young pieces they have, not just in their lineup, but coming up. And then they have their first rounder. Somehow, they have accumulated three second round picks in this year’s draft. And it’s like, up. They’re almost getting to the point, Jeff, where keeping all of these picks is pointless.

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Marek: “You can’t.”

Yaremchuk: “You don’t need more young players coming up.

Marek: “No, you can’t. Last time I checked, it’s still 50 contracts. You know, last time I checked, it’s one Stanley Cup given out. They play with one Puck, and you only allowed 50 contracts. Like at a certain place, yeah, certain time, you have to take the draft capital and say, we’re going to turn this into, into players.”

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