{"id":490307,"date":"2026-03-07T02:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T02:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/490307\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T02:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T02:25:15","slug":"utah-mammoth-gm-bill-armstrong-speaks-on-nhl-trade-deadline-day-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/490307\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong speaks on NHL trade deadline day \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA \u2014 As the Utah Mammoth\u2019s entire hockey operations staff filed down the elevator of the team\u2019s hotel minutes after Friday\u2019s 3 p.m. ET trade deadline, general manager Bill Armstrong remained in the conference-room-turned-war-room to address the media.<\/p>\n

The setup was conducive to every bit of analysis an NHL team would need in order to make a big trade: three giant TV screens and a whiteboard surrounding the square table, with the remnants of snacks all over it.<\/p>\n

But it didn\u2019t result in a single deadline day move for the team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of ask out there that wasn\u2019t in our possibility of doing,\u201d Armstrong told the media. \u201cIt just didn\u2019t make sense for the club.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like the opening day of free agency, the trade deadline is crucial for every team. There\u2019s the potential to add the final pieces you need for a Stanley Cup run, but there\u2019s also the risk of ruining the franchise\u2019s future. <\/p>\n

At this point in the Mammoth\u2019s build, Armstrong is not giving up the future for shorter term gains.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur best team is not here yet,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had to make sure, at the same time, that we didn\u2019t give away the future with some of the elite prospects that we\u2019ve drafted over the years, along with some high-end picks that we still have as an organization, so we tried to accomplish two things: protect the future, and at the same time, get better as a team, as an organization. I think we accomplished that.\u201d<\/p>\n

As widely reported as it was that the Mammoth were in on St. Louis Blues center Robert Thomas<\/a> and other big-name players, the price wasn\u2019t right, but that doesn\u2019t mean the Mammoth are in a bad position.<\/p>\n

When Armstrong won the Stanley Cup as an assistant general manager with the Blues in 2019, his team added just one player at the deadline: Michael Del Zotto, who, at that point in his career, watched far more games from the press box than he played.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I\u2019ve watched (teams) put this all-star team together right at the trade deadline, there\u2019s not enough games to bond each other to be able to get that synergy to actually win against a team that\u2019s been bonded the whole year, or maybe for three, four years. It\u2019s hard to beat those teams,\u201d Armstrong said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a little bit of a myth where people get all excited about these huge, massive trades that happen at the deadline, but rarely do they ever accumulate and come together to win a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already the team with the best record in the NHL, the on-paper trade deadline winner this year is the Colorado Avalanche \u2014 one of the Mammoth\u2019s more likely playoff opponents if they qualify. <\/p>\n

The Avalanche acquired Nazem Kadri, Nic Roy, Brett Kulak and Nick Blankenburg, subtracting just Victor Olofsson and Sam Girard from the current roster.<\/p>\n

But the Central Division is a gauntlet. With three of the league\u2019s top four teams, nothing is guaranteed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everybody kind of got a little bit better,\u201d Armstrong said. \u201cEverybody addressed their needs, which, it\u2019s competitive. It\u2019s the best division in hockey, for me, so it\u2019s a punch-in-the-face competition \u2014 not only on the ice, but off the ice, of our division getting better all the time. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only going to make us better, and it\u2019s going to be great hockey for the fans to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mammoth did make one acquisition<\/a> earlier in the week, getting defenseman MacKenzie Weegar from the Calgary Flames in exchange for Olli M\u00e4\u00e4tt\u00e4, Jonathan Castagna and three second-round draft picks.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old Weegar is having a down season, but if teams learned anything from last year\u2019s Seth Jones trade<\/a>, it\u2019s that good defensemen can look helpless when they play for bad teams.<\/p>\n

Adding Weegar ideally strengthens the Mammoth off the ice just as much as it does on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust a great guy, I think that\u2019s an easy way to sum it up,\u201d said Barrett Hayton, who played with Weegar at the World Championship last spring. \u201cHe\u2019s fun to be around. … He\u2019s just a great teammate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Added Utah head coach Andr\u00e9 Tourigny, who coached Weegar at the 2023 World Championship: \u201cYou won\u2019t find anybody who says a bad thing about this guy. He\u2019s a warrior every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Utah Hockey Club center Alexander Kerfoot (15) and Calgary Flames defenseman MacKenzie Weegar (52) compete for possession of the puck during an NHL game held at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News Nick Schmaltz contract update<\/p>\n

Although nothing is official yet, the Mammoth still have one big order of business in the works: A potential contract for Nick Schmaltz.<\/p>\n

Schmaltz\u2019s value cannot be understated. With 20 games left in the regular season, he has already surpassed his career-best goals total, and he\u2019s six points away from a personal best.<\/p>\n

His chemistry with Clayton Keller is incredible, so sticking around is probably in the best interest of both Schmaltz and the Mammoth, and his seamless transition from wing to center this year makes him an even greater asset, too.<\/p>\n

Armstrong confirmed that negotiations are trending positively.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel comfortable and confident that Nick\u2019s going to be a Mammoth,\u201d Armstrong said. \u201c… We have a way that we negotiate with the players. Like I always talked about, there\u2019s the soul of the player that I don\u2019t want to cross, and I feel comfortable and confident that we\u2019re going to make progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mammoth have $32,757,125 in unspoken-for 2026-27 cap space with nine pending free agents.<\/p>\n

\"\"Utah Mammoth center Nick Schmaltz (8) prepares for a faceoff against the Detroit Red Wings during the third period of an NHL game held at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 As the Utah Mammoth\u2019s entire hockey operations staff filed down the elevator of the team\u2019s hotel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5,1442,4,51,5290,232,5291,5289],"class_list":{"0":"post-490307","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-utah-hockey-club","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-news-feed-national","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-utah","12":"tag-utah-hc","13":"tag-utah-hockey-club","14":"tag-utahhc","15":"tag-utahhockeyclub"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116185526761343483","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}