LOS ANGELES — The Utah Mammoth are hoping their draft luck lasts a little longer.
After jumping from No. 14 to No. 4 in the lottery, the Mammoth “took a swing” Friday at a player they feel can be a difference maker long term with center Caleb Desnoyers from Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, and the Moncton Wildcats of the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League.
“You’ve been the guy since the moment we jumped into four,” Utah general manager Bill Armstrong told Desnoyers on the draft stage at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
The Mammoth followed up back-to-back No. 6 first-round picks with the No. 4 pick in the 2025 NHL draft, its highest pick for the club since taking Logan Cooley No. 3 overall in 2022.
Desnoyers comes from a hockey family, with his older brother, Elliot, currently under contract with the Philadelphia Flyers. Caleb Desnoyers helped the Wildcats win their third QMJHL championship this season and won the Guy Lafleur Trophy as the league’s postseason MVP.
The 6-foot-2, 178-pound center put up 35 goals, 49 assists and a plus-51 rating in 56 games with Moncton last season, finishing tied for fifth in points and ninth in assists among all QMJHL skaters
Rumors swirled going into the draft about the possibility of the New York Islanders trading up into the No. 4 pick to take hometown kid James Hagens from Long Island, but Utah decided to stand pat and “take a swing” at another top prospect, as general manager Bill Armstrong put it.
“We’re not picking at fourth to get a third-line guy,” Armstrong said on the “Meet the Prospects” NHL feature. “I’m going to say this bluntly: I’d rather miss than get a third-line guy. We’re swinging. This player that comes from this draft can help us get over the hump into winning a Stanley Cup.”
The Mammoth have had several solid hits in recent years with top-10 picks Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther, and hope Desnoyers is the latest to join a potent, young attack on the Wasatch Front. The Mammoth have five more picks in the 2025 draft, including one in each of the next five rounds.
Desnoyers should be joining Utah’s other prospects, including players taken in the latter rounds tomorrow and former draft picks Dmitri Simashev, Daniil But, Tij Iginla and Cole Beaudoin, in Salt Lake City starting Sunday for the club’s prospect development camp June 29-July 3.
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