KSL Sports Utah Mammoth Insider Cole Bagley Breaks Down NHL Draft Prospects

KSL Sports Utah Mammoth Insider Cole Bagley Breaks Down NHL Draft Prospects

Number three. Wow. Fourth overall selection in the 2025 NHL Upper Deck entry draft belongs to the Utah Hockey Club. Wow. The story is in Utah. Frank in the books. And what a ride it’s been, right? Still a lot more to come and to be excited about for the future of this team. And here to take a look at it with us and some of these future possible moves is our Utah Mammoth insider for kslports.com. It’s Cole Bagley. Cole, thanks for stepping in the studio and talking hockey. Yeah. Yeah, it’s it’s weird to be known as the Mammoth Insider now. It’s just there’s a muscle memory that goes along with the with the Utah hockey. The Mammoth Mammoth’s awesome. A lot of excitement surrounding it. No doubt about it. All right, so first things first here. Let’s look at the the more imminent future here. for the Mammoth. They won the jackpot at the NHL draft lottery, moving up 10 spots to number four. A team that already was so close to the playoffs, that already has a lot of young talent on the team in place. What does the number four pick do for this franchise in that position? Yeah, it’s it’s just continued momentum. You know, when you consider everything that the Mammoth were able to experience this last year in terms of, you know, the the budding stardom of Logan Koulie and Dylan Gunther, Vamela, Keller, Sergeev playing as well as they have to have, you know, the sixth overall pick and another later pick last year and then to get the fourth overall pick this season with zero of the pain associated with it. That’s something that Bill Armstrong talked about was look, usually to pick inside the top five, you’re going through a lot of pain and this organization has felt that, but this one no pain associated and the momentum just keeps going forward for this car. Yeah, we we saw his reaction. There was no pain in his reaction to winning that lottery uh pick number four obviously as well. So, let’s take a look at who you think could be options here at number four. I think a lot of people say that Matthew Schaefer is going to be the number one pick. Is there a chance that he’s there at number four? Yeah, I mean I think it’s important to to you know outline the fact that he’s probably going to be the number one pick or at least two, but you know there’s some worry because this is a guy that only played 17 games this last season. It would take a lot of confidence to pick a guy like that number one overall. Um so I think just making sure people understand that. But there is a chance, you know, based on things that I’ve heard and conversations I’ve been a part of, he could potentially fall. And if he follows it four, the mammoth would definitely want to make him uh, you know, at least the first ever player drafted to wear a mammoth sweater. It’s not like Cooper flag. He’s not falling at all in the NBA. There’s a chance here. All right. But if Schaefer is off the board as it’s probably he’s not probably not going to be there at number four. So if he’s off the board and maybe they want to go on the offensive side of the ice instead of defense, who do you like there? I really like Porter Martone. Um, you know, he’s 6’3 and he is one of those players that is able to, you know, continuously make incredible things happen and it’s a lot of individual, you know, brilliance. He’s phenomenal with the puck on his stick. You know, he and he’s also a pest. He’s obnoxious. You know, he’s going to bug, you know, defenseman. He’s going to go on that dirty areas. He’s going to, you know, jab you with your stick, you know, with his stick or, you know, push you around in the crease. And that is what Utah needs more of is is a guy that’s willing to go and and you know do the dirty work and really like Porter Martone if he’s available at number four. Yeah, if there’s a if there’s a mold of a player that Bill Armstrong likes, he likes those big players. Marton certainly would fit in that mold. Now, one thing Bill also has been talking about recently is there’s a lot of championship winning players on this roster. Most recently, it’s been Keller, Kulie, Don, Kessler. All four of them a part of that world championship team with USA and winning does a lot for a franchise. What can it do for the Utah Mammoth already this season having those four guys who are already leaders on the team bring championship winning experience now to the locker room? Yeah. I mean this is a team that’s stepping into year five of the rebuild and you know they’ve gone through a lot of pain as we already talked about but what Bill is doing and like you said is he’s adding championship mentality. He’s adding championship experience. He did that a year ago by signing Ian Cole and Kevin Stan and Ola, guys that have won Stanley Cups. You know, he just added two prospects in Denil Boat and Demetri Simichev who just won in the KHL. And now we’re getting, you know, these Americans who just did something, you know, they made history. They won a gold medal for the first time since 1933 at the World Championships. And that that only has to add confidence. Uh and not just confidence in general, but confidence in young players. You know, guys like Don and Kessle Ring and Logan Koulie who’s only 21 years old. Not only did they win gold, but Logan Coulley led all Americans with 12 points. You know, I think you had four goals, eight assists. It just it helps them get a taste of what it takes to win, right? It helps them understand what that takes going through adversity. You you know, a mentality that this team is seeking, which is a championship mentality because now that you’re stepping into year five of that rebuild, you don’t want to talk about the rebuild anymore. You want to talk about competing and contending for Stanley Cups, and that’s really what they’re looking to do. Okay, you can read everything that Cole has on the Utah Mammoth over at kslports.com.

Cole Bagley joined KSL Sports Live to break down the players that could eventually become Utah Mammoth.