Utah Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong previews the 2025-26 season
Let’s go. Let’s go. Complete game coverage of the Cougars is right here on the KSL Sports Zone. The Cougars head to Tucson for a battle against the Arizona Wildcats, your home for the best coverage of Cougar football is right here on 975, the KSL Sports Zone. This is Hance Olsson and Scotty G presented by Mountainland Supply on 975 the KSL Sports. It is Christmas Day in the NHL. It is opening day and I could not be more fired up hands. Year two of the NHL in Salt Lake City and I have missed our guy. I know I’ve missed our conversations. I’ve missed picking up on the game, some of the finer details, and excited to have him back on the show. He is the general manager of the Utah Mammoth, Bill Armstrong. Bill, how are you? Well, I’m great. Now, I’m talking to you guys. You guys just said it absolutely perfect. I have missed you guys all summer. All summer I haven’t been able to talk about hockey, you know, and I’ve just been waiting for this moment, and now it’s here. So, it’s here. It’s It’s our Christmas Day cuz NHL is kicking off. It’s your Christmas day because you get to be on with Hans and Scotty. What a what a fun Christmas. It is Christmas Day. I’ve never felt better. You know, there the one thing I’ve always loved about our conversations, you’re brutally honest about where your team’s at. And last year when we asked, “What are your expectations?” You’re like, “Hey, look, we’re taking that next step. We feel like we’re on the cusp.” And this year you’ve flat out said like, “Hey, we’re we should be a playoff team this year.” Do you still feel confident in that? I do. I I do. I think, you know, it’s uh for our group, you know, it’s we’ve put it out there. You know, we’ve talked about it. We we’ve we’ve asked our everybody in our organization for a higher level of commitment. You know, we got to push to get in um from the players, the trainers, the coaches to myself, like whatever it takes to get it done. So, um we like that pressure, too. I think there’s a goodness of that. uh expecting to be good, expecting to make the playoffs and and setting that standard when you’re coming to the rink that you know we expect you to be at your best to get us in. So, um it’s it’s a good vibe around here. It’s not going to be easy. I’m telling you, it is not going to be easy. We’re in the toughest division in hockey every night. It’s going to be a punch in the face comp competition. Um it’s going to be a battle, but I I also think I I I love our group and I think, you know, for us it’s going to be a great challenge. you know, we got some young young players that can that can really flat out play. And uh with the schedule being condensed because of the Olympics, it’s like every other night we’re going. So, it’s on. It’s on. And I’m excited. And I want all the Mammoth fans out there to know that it’ll look largely the same, but it’s going to look drastically different at times, too. And I want to try to grasp the magnitude of bringing in a guy like JJ Purka coming into his fifth coming into his fifth year. Um coming from Buffalo. Uh he’s he’s he’s a player out of Munich, Germany. This is a he is a a winger and he’s supposed to be fantastic. So help me understand, Bill, how much different does the Mammoth look with JJ Purka? Well, he’s a scoring threat. you know, he’s a 68-point guy that last year. He’s a young kid in the National Hockey League. He gives us a ton of speed and he’s a threat to score off the rush. So, for us, you know, to be able to get him, he kind of completes our top two lines. You know, I always felt like we were one or two guys short to really to be able to kind of create that top two line offense. And and now we’ve kind of completed that. You know, he’s a special player. He’s a young player and he’s pushing, you know, he’s going to push this group to get better. Um, and then you know we’ve got him on a line with Logan Culie and Dylan Gunther and might be the fastest, most exciting line in the National Hockey League. How difficult is it from your perspective? And I imagine it’s difficult every year, but you you know your core group of guys, but finishing out that opening day roster, how difficult is that? And how agonizing is that when you know these guys are all putting in incredible amounts of work? You know, it is agonizing to think about it, but once you come to grips on it in your mind and you’re like, “Okay, this is what we’re doing and this is why.” Um, you know, you you you feel good in the sense that sometimes you you you you have to make a decision for a young player to go to play in the minors, but you know that’s the right decision for him. It’s a tough decision, but I always feel like if you’re really a player and we put you down there, you always come back like, you know, it’s almost like you were shot out of a cannon or out of a slingshot back into the NHL because you’re you realize, you know, the the American League is a tough place to play and you also realize that the NHL is where you want to be and it’s always a great great teaching tool. Um, and I always feel like we’ve done that with, you know, from JJ uh Moser we had a long time ago. We had Dylan Gunther and Josh Doan. They’ve all done it, you know, and it really completes the player. I think it makes the player a little bit more consistent. So, sometimes you got to make tough decisions on your roster and uh and send guys down, but I also feel like there’s some good um that’ll help the player uh long term, I got to imagine. Is that do you feel like that’s more your the way you lean is let him cook a little bit longer in the AHL before you bring him up? You’d rather go too long on that end then throw them to the Wolves too soon. Yeah, the NHL is the toughest. You know, it’s the toughest thing that they’ll ever do in their life is play consistent at that level. So, if we can let them bake a little bit, um, two things happen. They’re a better player when they hit the NHL and we’re a better team because they’re at their peak. And when you get to this point and you’re trying to push for a playoff spot, the NHL is not a development league. It’s a league where you have to be good enough to produce. So, I do feel like overbaking them, it does help. It does help the organization. It helps them as a player. I love the way you put that, Bill. And it’s kind of crazy to think that you have six first round draft picks in the system right now. and I go through them with Lamro and you’ve got Igginla and Denoy, your most recent, but you’ve got all of this great talent that’s in the system, but I like your take right there where it’s like this is not a developmental system that we’ve got systems for that. Uh you guys have a different focus, but all this young talent has to be extremely exciting for you as a general manager. It is. I mean, we’ve got some great kids. I mean, they came to play, you know, training camp and they’re tough cuts, but when you when you send them back to their junior teams or down in the American League, you know, you realize like, okay, you know, surely they’re going to be pushing for an NHL job and they can help us win if we time it right and and and help out their developing and bring them in the right time. They’re not just coming in to play, they’re coming in to help us win. And there’s a big difference in that. And uh I think as an organization, it’s a great thing, too, because we have high standards. um before you know if you were ready to play we put you in and and and we’re not at that right now. We’re we’re we’re we’re trying to take that next step and we need players to come in and be able to contribute uh be able to have impact and and really push the franchise, you know, uh across the across the goal line here and get us in the playoffs. There were a lot of games that got away from you in late game situations in overtime as well. Do you feel like another year of experience added with a little bit of you added a little bit of experience to this roster? Do you think that helps in those close game late game situations? I do. I mean, we’ve added Brandon Tannif in there and he’s he’s a driven human being and the Nate Schmidt and the Vanicheks and you know, in total we have uh nine Stanley Cups in in our dress room and that’s that’s an important factor. Um, you know, and I think we, you know, everybody, there’s painful lessons sometimes for the the the Gunthers of the world and the coolies, you know, that you have to go through um and go back home for the summer and think about it and get better and be like, “Okay, I’ve got more determination when I’m in that spot again. I’m not going to let that happen.” And that’s that’s a maturing factor that has to happen uh for our club. And and I feel in a lot of ways the guys went home got bigger, stronger, and faster, and they’re a little wiser. So, they’re going to help push. Um, uh, the schedule this year is is absolutely it’s it’s unrelenting. And, you know, for us, we we play a lot of the games on the road to start out. And, you know, we got to make it to Christmas and be in the race. If we can get to Christmas and be in that race. Um, you know, we got a good chance down the stretch to push and and uh and get in. I’m so excited for you, Bill, and I’m I’m so excited for this season, just to get this second season really going and and understand and experience what it’s going to be about. So, as a from a general manager’s standpoint, what’s been more difficult, moving a team from Arizona to Utah or having a build and a rebuild on practice facilities and your playing venue? Because I got to imagine that’s been difficult and a bit distracting for you. Yeah. Well, you know, listen, I think that the the hardest thing for us, you know, was to be honest, the hardest thing we’ve done is, and it sounds weird when I say this to you, but we our players were so touched when we moved here to Utah. Um, you know, we started playing in the Delta Center and our fan base, it felt like they were there for 30 years and they’re going crazy. our players had a hard time playing there. It’s almost as a team we overtried. We got over frustrated. We were over emotional. It’s because our our players cared so much and wanted to entertain. They wanted to win in front of our fan base. And you know, for the first part last year, we struggled with that. But it was because we were we were over trying at times. That that was probably the hardest thing that we did is is getting used to playing in there with our fan base. And it’s such a great thing. Like we played our two exhibition games there now. It’s just rock. And the new seating is incredible. And our whole facility is is built in Sandy. It’s just I lived the dream every day I walk in and I mean I get to work for Ryan and Ashley Smith and they’ve done a great job where they’ve created this organization where there is zero excuses. Yeah. Yeah. They take they take them all away. Yeah. There’s no excuses left. Yeah. All right. So, this is uh we always ask you one dumb question. Um well, actually, we ask you a lot, but we ask you a lot of dumb questions, but but but one that we’ll recognize as dumb. Um there’s always I’ve heard different arenas across uh the NHL and you know, players or coaches say, “Oh, that’s good ice or that, you know, sometimes that that’s bad ice in there.” what what what is good ice and how important was that in the rebuild of this arena to ensure that you have indeed good ice in uh in the Delta Center? Yeah. Well, I’m going to answer this in a way like I don’t believe in excuses, you know. So, when you know our practice ice last year, you know, we had a lot of snow. we you know it’s just you need pretty much two rinks to practice uh in the NHL cuz because of the the size of the player and how many people you have on the ice and if you can’t clean it then your your pace of practice slows down and the puck hops and then we’d go to the Delta and it just wasn’t made the Delta Center wasn’t made at at that time uh to produce great ice. There was no dehumidifiers in there and the the the ice generation plant was old. Now we’re we’re out in Sandy with brand new facility and the ice is unbelievable. And now we’re, you know, and now we go play at the game in in the Delta Center and the ice is unbelievable. So good ice benefits our team. And what it is is it allows us to play fast. The puck moves on the ice which allows us to play it. We’re a fast team. So when we don’t have good ice, that means it’s slushy. That means the puck is jumping. And when the puck jumps on you, you have to slow down to catch it. When the puck is not jumping and it’s not bouncing on the ice and it’s moving across it, you can play fast. And the faster we can play, the more chance we have to win. So, u I believe the ice in Sandy at a practice facility and at the Delta Center. It’s the best ice in the NHL and it’s going to help us. So, Bill, I might should probably ask Coach Bear this question, but I’ll just throw it at you because it’d be interested to get your perspective on this. Um, Veggie back ready, looking good, but can you give us some ideas or at least a picture of what our net depth looks like? Yeah, I mean, in this schedule that we play in is crazy. You know, it’s like we gota, you know, I say we got to make it through to Christmas is the big thing. We a lot of backto back games and on the road which they’re hard to win and with our goalending the way it’s set up, Veggie’s pretty durable. Um he was great for us. Played 24 of 25 games coming down the stretch and crushed it. You know, he’s just he can play almost every night. So that’s a that’s a huge uh bonus for us. But Mr. Vanichek coming out of um New Jersey a couple years ago, he crushed it. He he he had an unbelievable team in front of him and he just blew it out of the water and he took it to another level and he’s you know he the couple years after that he he had some struggles um played pretty well for Florida to win uh you know the Stanley Cup and now we brought him in here. So he’s a and he’s been lights out good for us all through training camp and in the exhibition season. So we have a lot of faith in him. I think with our two goalenders running, they’re going to give us good goalending every single night. And with the schedule, we’re going to need to to have some success. So, the Olympic year plus the fact that you share an arena with an NBA team, that that just creates a scheduling nightmare for you. Correct. It does, but I think with the new the new power plant, the ice power plant and our the ice crew that does an amazing job at the Delta Center with the changeovers, they’re going to crush it. I mean, SCG does a great job and hires the best people. So, I believe like our ice is going to be, you know, one of the top ice sheets in the NHL just because of how hard the Delta Center and its employees work at at keeping it as good as they do. All right, last thing for me, Bill. outside of JJ Purka. Um I, you know, I fell in love with some of these guys on the ice and and had a good idea of of what they’re going to bring to the ice. But outside of JJ Purka, give me the next name or another name that’s going to be new on the ice that I didn’t see last year that I need to pay attention to coming into this season. Great question. That’s Dimmitri Simichev, 65, 225 pound Dman out of Russia. Um he’s the best skating big Dman I’ve I’ve been a part of drafting. Um he’s earned a spot. He’s come into camp and he’s earned the right to start for our team as a rookie as a 20-year-old Dman. Uh he’s had a great training camp and he is some somebody that we knew was good. Uh we we weren’t quite sure if he’d come in and make the team, but he has. Um he can fly, absolute fly and uh um he’s going to be a great asset for us uh to play some good defense uh down the stretch, but he’s uh he’s done a nice job coming in here and earning a spot on the team. Dimmitri Simichev, Costroma, Russia. Wow. 65 652. What? Oh, he’s 225. I love it. Excited to watch him. Hey, big boy. We always appreciate it. Good luck and look forward to catching up again next week. But uh let’s go, man. We we can’t wait to talk about playoff hockey come April. Let’s go, mammoth. I can’t wait. I can’t wait. We’re so excited. Thanks, guys. Happy for you, Bill. Thank you. He’s the best. Bill Armstrong, general manager, Utah Mammoth.
• Utah Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong
