The Mammoth need to take the next step as a contender
The Utah Mammoth achieved most of their goals in the 2025-26 NHL season, as they qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in franchise history before putting up a solid fight against the eventual Western Conference champion Vegas Golden Knights in a six-game loss in the first round.
With a solid amount of draft capital, about $13 million in salary cap space and an aggressive mindset, general manager Bill Armstrong is poised to make moves this summer to fill in some of the gaps in the Mammoth’s roster.
But even before any big additions, Utah should be able to improve with progression from young stars like Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed what Armstrong can do this summer to help push the Mammoth from being a good team to a great team.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Up today is the Utah Mammot, and you know last year they made the big shake-up getting JJ Peterka. I don’t know if that move necessarily is an A-plus when you look at it in hindsight considering you know [Josh] Doan had an awesome year in Buffalo, and Peterka was pretty inconsistent with the Mammoth this year, but they made the playoffs, that was kind of priority number one. And the goal and now I think the task at hand for Bill Armstrong, Hutts, is to find a way to get this team from the playoff conversation to the, ‘Oh they’re right there with the Minnesotas and the Dallas’ in the Central Division.
Carter Hutton: Yeah, I think so, and I think that is the worrisome, like, to rush it, right? I think patience is going to be important because of the fact you look at what the Central Division is still going to offer next year, and it’s going to be deep, but you want to take a step forward. You want to keep developing. Now it’s trying to find the players that are going to fit in here to grow with your group, right? You have a really good core to grow around. I know you lock up Nick Schmalz, you have Clayton Keller, Lawson Crouse on that first line that he has up there. Those are veteran guys that are going to fit in anywhere can play up and down your lineup that with Guenther and Cooley and you start to put, hopefully Peterka takes a step forward, things start to look really good in Utah. My concern for them when I sit here is the amount of games that Karel Vejmelka played, and Vitek Vanecek is going to be in the outside looking in. Do you go out and find someone now to push him a little bit and give him a relief? Because I think 64 games is really, really high when we talk about today’s day and age and goaltending, and then you look at the playoffs, at times you look tired. I think you’ve got to protect him a little bit, so maybe going out and finding a key piece that you can give a few million bucks to for a year or two as you start to develop your prospects will be important… I still don’t think you’re there next year, and maybe it’s two years away, where you can really start to push more in the Central because with the way the Dallas, Minnesota, Colorado looks, it looks like odds are you would still be that wild card team.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…