2025-26 Utah Mammoth Season Preview!

2025-26 Utah Mammoth Season Preview!

What’s going on, guys? It’s Brandon back here again today for another season preview. We did Toronto’s this morning. I’m all caught up and now we got Utah’s. Um, it’s still weird saying Utah, even though he’s going into year two now. It’s It’s just weird. Oh, you usually only heard Utah when you’re talking about the Utah Jazz in the NBA or Utah’s uh Salt Lake City has a soccer team. So, those really the only times you really ever heard of Utah in sports. So, it’s it’s still weird, but it’s a good weird. The GM, Bill Armstrong, was it was there four years with the Coyotes. Now, he’s been here two years with Utah, I should say, the Utah Mammoth. I still have the Coyotes magnet on the board because I don’t have a Utah magnet. The coach is Andre Turney. He’s going into year six as or year five, I should say. Um, three years with the Coyotes and now his second year with the Utah Hockey Club, now known as the Utah Mammoth. There we go, I said it. Uh, looking at the first line, this is a team that’s been building up for a while. The Coyotes were in a rebuild for a while, and now Utah’s getting a team that’s really young, that’s really ready to go. The question is whether or not they will have that superstar that’s really going to take him to the next level. Many say it starts with Clayton Keller. 7.15 million until 2028. Excellent player, 90 point guy, especially playing with the young players like Kulie and Gther. He’s going to play with Purka and he’s played with Schmaltz. He’s had a lot of good players around him, but can he be that driving force? Can take that next step? Coolie’s an RFA in 2026, and he will also be getting paid this off season. So, Utah will have to dig into some cap space, which they will have. They have some expiring deals on this team. They’ve already extended uh they’ve already extended Gther 7.142 million until 2033. Injuries have been an issue with him lately. Hopefully this season, he could stay healthy finally. Then they acquired JJ Purka 7.7 million gave him his deal until 2030. So that’s an exciting piece to add to their lineup. Barrett Hayden 2.65 million until 2026 where he will also be an RFA. He’s also going to be counted on to take that next step into really being a second line center for this team. That’s something that you could really question whether or Utah has a second andor third line center. You have Nick Schmaltz 5.85 million until 2026. truly a veteran on this team compared to a lot of the others. So, he’s he’s going to be have an expiring cap hit. Whether he resigns in Utah, we’ll see. Uh Keroot 3 million in 2026. Uh McBain 4.25 million until 2030, which I thought was pretty pricey for McBain. We’ll see if he lives up to that contract and if he can really be that third line center. If so, that’s a bargain of a deal. If not, you’re looking at a contract that may want to be moved at some point. You have Lawson Krauss 4.3 million until 2027. And I will give credit where credit’s due. Their right side, their four right forwards are I think are fantastic. Uh look looking at their uh fourth line, you have uh O’Brien uh 1 million until 2027. Stenland 2 million until 2026 and Tanv 2.5 million until 2028 signed here. So you have some expiring deals. You have Schmaltz, you have uh Keroot, you have Stenland, not to mention Hayden and Koulie’s deals. They’re going to make them RFAS. So maybe Stenland and Keroot. Those guys are might be guys who might be leading the team because there are some even more younger players here ready to take their spots, I believe, coming up, especially by next year. Uh looking at the depth, you have Carone. I think he’ll be in the lineup more than O’Brien will. O’Brien’s kind of that fighter enforcer kind of forward. So Carone might find might find his way into that fourth line spot. And if so, I I I like Carone a lot. So I think that’d be good. You have Yamamoto here as depth. And then you get into their young players. You have uh Boot, you have Agela, Bodoyne, Smith, Denoy. Denoy is going to be a crucial part of this team. He’s likely going to fit into that second line center spot. And you eventually want to bump Hayden down, but Denoier uh fourth overall pick in this last year’s draft if he Utah jumps from 14th to fourth to select him. So, you’re expecting he’s going to be an excellent player for this organization for years to come as well. Looking at their goalending, you got your big number one defenseman and that’s already settled. That’s Male Sergev 8.5 million until 2031. And then you have John Marino 4.4 million until 2027. Ian Cole, 2.8 until 2026. And Shawn Dury, 6 million until 2028. Ole 3.5 million until 2028. And then right off of Stanley Cup, you have Schmidt that comes over, Nate Schmidt from 3.5 million until 2028. So, you have some really strong defense here. Only thing I’d question is a second side left wing defenseman or not left wing, left side, left shot defenseman. But, uh, we’ll see if that’s something they address during the season. If they address looking for a better, uh, more center depth or if they look for more, uh, defensive depth on the left side. Uh speaking of depth defensively, you have Valamaki 2 million until 2026. You have Perunovic, you have D Simone, you have Conetan. And then on the young side, you have Lamaru, Simichev, and Lavois. Again, Lamaru and Simichev. Those are two first round picks, former first round picks. Simichev, I believe, was a top 10 pick, I think. Did he go sixth? I think a couple years ago it was sixth or 10th that those numbers stick out. So, I think it’s one of those. Uh that was a defenseman I wanted the Hawks to get, but they didn’t end up getting him. He didn’t fall to them. So, Simichev, maybe he takes a spot on this Lamaroo um in a couple years as well. So, maybe you’ll phase Ma and Schmidt’s an older defenseman, so you’ll phase them out. Another one is Cole and you bring the younger guys in. Very bright future for the Utah hockey club without question just looking at the amount of depth this team has and upcoming talent this team has. Looking at the goalending, you have Vamela signed 4.75 million until 2030. And then they signed Vanichek 1.5 million until 2026 only for the one year. You also have Engram signed 1.95 million until 2026. Very interesting choice of goalenders. Vanichek off a poor season, kind of two poor seasons. Ingram was in the players assistance program. Now he’s back. You hope he gets a rebound season. And Vamela, he’s likely in all all likelihood the starter, but do you look for a better starting goalender if you’re Utah? I wonder because um Vamela, he’s a good goalender. I wouldn’t consider him a great goalender, but that’s something again, they have draft picks, they have assets, they have young players, they have a lot of stuff that they can do to address these issues. Also, they have Jackson Stalbert. I really want the Hawks to keep on to him, but he ended up in Utah. You also have Thoron, another defense goalender to look for in their um depth there. They finished sixth in the division last season. And this is a central division that’s tough. You have Winnipeg, you have Dallas, you have Colorado, you have Minnesota, and you have St. Louis. All playoff teams. Utah could very much as well fit in that playoff team. I would honestly say they are going to make the playoffs as a wild card this season just looking at the roster and if not they’re going to be that kind of close that Calgary was with St. Louis this season. This may be the same amount of points and lose on a tiebreaker. This team just all around they look like a young upcoming playoff team. kind of similar to how Chicago looked in 2008 2009 when they were u making their first run at the playoffs into their what would be um decade of really good being really good. Um speaking of being really good, Arizona/ Utah has been a team that hasn’t really been really good as of late. So thankfully for 2020 they made the playoffs. So this list would have been a lot longer going up to probably around right here with 2013. 2020 they make the playoffs. They lose in the they win the qualifying round against Nashville. Then they lose in the first round against Colorado in five. 2021 24 26 and six 54 points for 22nd in the league. That’s when they commit to the rebuild right there. 2022 2550 and seven record 57 points for 31st in the league. And that’s the year they get Logan Culie. 2033 or 33 2023 uh 2840 and 14 record. So they improve by 13 points. They go up to 70 points. Se uh 27th in the league. 2024 they make another jump 3641 and five for 77 points. So over two seasons they’ve jumped up 20 points. That’s still only 27th in the league, however. And then they move to Utah. The Arizona the the Arizona the Coyotes that’s all put behind them. They don’t have to worry about if they’re moving because they’ve already moved. Their stability is there now. 20 24 25 they come out and they have 38 31 and 13 record 89 points. So another 12point jump. So going from 57 to 89 points in three seasons. Remarkable turnaround. 20th in the league this season and they should only be getting better from here. The team this team adds Purka. This team adds Tanv Schmidt and Vanichek. Subtractions they lose Josh Don. Kessle Ring goes which I was a fan of Kessle Ring at Utah. I’d probably have him on the left side over Cole, but it happens. Uh, Bucad signs in St. Louis. Machelli surprisingly is traded to Toronto, but I guess when you add Purka, you can afford to lose a top six winger. And then Bortuzo is an unrestricted free agent. In all likelihood, he will retire. But I wanted to hear your thoughts. Where do you think the Utah hockey club is going to finish this season? I think they have a very good chance of being in the playoffs. Who they leaprog in the Central is going to be a very important question. Winnipeg likely falls back a little bit. Dallas I think stays right where they are. Colorado I could see falling a little bit. Minnesota after hearing now Capri off rejected 16 by8. Uh who knows and uh St. Louis um good team could be right on the edge of that again. And then Nashville and Chicago which you don’t expect to be playoff teams but we we’ll see. It’s going to be a very interesting season. Now we finished the Atlantic division and we finished the Central Division I think. Have we? No, we still have to do Winnipeg. So, we haven’t finished the Central Division. We got four season previews left. V uh Vancouver, Vegas, Washington, and Winnipeg. All coming to you over the next four days. Thank you guys so much for watching this video, and I shall see you guys in the next one. Have a good one.

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