The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Bill Armstrong

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

Utah GM Bill Armstrong stops by to explain why the Mammoth are turning into one of the NHL’s most exciting young squads — Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, JJ Peterka, Clayton Keller, and a heavy support group that refuses to get pushed around. He also details the organization’s new “no excuses” standard thanks to elite facilities and investment in winning. From physicality returning league-wide to Team Canada Olympic motivation, Marek and Zack tackle every headline shaping the NHL right now.SHOUTOUT TO OUR SPONSORS!!👍🏼 Fan Duel: https://www.fanduel.com/👍🏼Bauer: https://www.bauer.com/👍🏼Shark Ninja: https://www.sharkninja.ca/ninja-crispi-4-in-1-portable-glass-air-fryer-cooking-system/FN101CGY.html?utm_source=Better+Collective&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=H2+Air+Fryer&utm_content=EN👍🏼Uber Eats: https://www.ubereats.com/ca👍🏼Prime Video: https://primevideo-row.pxf.io/c/5560083/3303015/20020Reach out to [e-mail] to connect with our Sales Team and discuss opportunities to partner with us!If you liked this, check out:🚨 OTT - Coming in Hot Sens | https://www.youtube.com/c/thewallyandmethotshow🚨 TOR - LeafsNation | https://www.youtube.com/@theleafsnation401🚨 EDM - OilersNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Oilersnationdotcom🚨 VAN - CanucksArmy | https://www.youtube.com/@Canucks_Army🚨 CGY - FlamesNation | https://www.youtube.com/@Flames_Nation🚨 Daily Faceoff Fantasy & Betting | www.youtube.com/@DFOFantasyandBetting____________________________________________________________________________________________Connect with us on ⬇️Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/daily_faceoff💻 Website: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com🐦 Follow on twitter: https://x.com/DailyFaceoff💻 Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoffDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With that, we'll get to our next guest. He is the general manager of the very fun to watch Utah Mammoth. He is Bill Armstrong, and he joins me on the sheet. Now, Bill, thanks so much for dropping by today. First of all, I don't think I've ever had the chance this season to congratulate you on the logo. And not only the logo to the mascot, I'm just going to ask you a frivolous question to start. How much input would the general manager have on the mascot? Absolutely none.

My big thing is to stay in the lane, stay in my lane, you know, and don't get too far out of it. But I'll tell you a little bit just quickly about our company. And you have such pride when we work for SCG and Ryan Smith and Ashley Smith. We were revealing the logo that day. And at the same time, behind the curtain, they were redoing the bottom bowl. And I just finished my drive-in from the practice facility where they were a quarter of the way done. They were doing three major things at the same time, and they crushed it. When you showed up for that press conference to release, you know, the mammoth, it was done first class.

It was absolutely amazing what they've done. It's a great company, Ryan and his wife, do an amazing job. And, you know, he lined up in front of the players, said, we're going to do this, this, and this. And he's delivered on all of them. So it's unbelievable to work for him and be a part of the organization. Let me ask you about the practice facility because, you know, one of the, one of the things like, how did, again, I'm not there, so I don't know, how did this thing go up so fast? It's, I don't know. We were putting a shovel in the ground and 12 months before that, you know, and now we're walking in.

But I got to tell you a quick, a GM story. I try not to like lounge around and, you know, this is just beautiful area, this incredible, you know, workout facility. but the other day everybody had left and I had a chance. It was almost like a spa, you know what I mean? The running treadmill going in the water, the cold and hot tub and the steam. It's an incredible facility. It's first class all the way through. And, you know, it's two rinks.

I can't believe what they've done in a small period of time. It makes our organization, an elite organization, the way it was done. Um, does this recent success surprise you at all, or is this sort of, and again, I'll preface all of this as we all do at this time of year. It's still early. But does this run of success from your team surprise you at all? Or is this this sort of like, even going back to the Arizona days, is this just like the culmination of all these building blocks? Yeah, it's a culmination of the building blocks. We've been chipping away at a long time. We had a guest coach come in one time and see us somewhere in the middle of the rebuild. And he's like, wow, you. you guys are hard on each other and behind the scenes about winning and, you know, where you expect to be. He goes, you got a hell of a team. You're not ready to kind of get to that level of winning that you think you should be at. And I'm like, yeah, but we're pushing. We're pushing now because when it comes, we're going to expect it. And we've always been hard about the way that we practice, about the way that we prepare, and we deal with analytics and pushing how good we can be.

you know and we've we've got shooting coaches we've got strength coaches we got stick handling coaches you name it you know there are no excuses in this organization we have the best of the best and we push it every single day you know interesting you mentioned you know no reason for excuses here um Ryan Smith seems to be singularly focused on providing you in the organization with every reason and every resource to take away all the excuses. Like, there's never going to be a player that drives back home and says, well, we would have been successful if this didn't happen. Or if we had the resources to do that.

Like, is that something that you feel in your role? Is that something you see around the organization that you have an ownership group that's like, okay, what are the excuses? Let's get rid of them. Yeah, that's exactly what Ryan's done. And he has really created an organization you want to come to work for and bleed for. But you definitely walk in that every day, just saying there's no excuse, you know, from, you know, the way that the practice rink, the two rinks are designed and how we can move back and forth. You know, after 15 minutes, you practice on one sheet over to the new ice or you go to our Delta Center and they put brand new ice technology in with two new dehumidifiers upstairs.

like everything's done properly. Everything's done right. There's zero excuses in our organization. It's great to be a part of that. I think our players enjoy that. The expectations are high inside the mammoth. And I do believe that's why you see some of the results that we're achieving now. You know, a couple of like really great highlight moments from this weekend around the NHL.

You know, the Macklin celebrating the overtime goal was beautiful. The first time San Jose touched the puck in the overest. time. But to me, the play of the, the play of the weekend was last night. And it was, it's 2-2. It's the third period. You know where I'm going with this one. I'm assuming. Yes. J.J. Paturka going into the corner in a race with Logan Stanley, who is just like, pardon the expression, a mammoth player. He's massive. Yeah. And Petrca wins that physical battle. Ends up being another goal by Dylan Gunther and the Utah mammoth win the game. And just looking at, you know, Petrca just like left everything on the ice, including himself. Like,

He's still lying on the ice as Gunther is celebrating. What did you see in J.J. Patyrka when he was with Buffalo that made you go out there this summer and say, we need that guy here. I saw a player that wanted to win that has elite talent. You know, those guys are hard to find, you know, and it was tough to give up Josh Stone. He was a big part of this organization.

We loved him from the inside out. He's an unreal kid along with Michael Cessarang. Those two players were extremely. tough to give up for our organization. But when you get a chance to have a game breaker that you can trade for and put in your top two lines, you know,

you've got to go for that. And we saw that in JJ. We saw a player that wanted to win, wanted to be in the big moments and would provide the effort. And we certainly know he has the talent. And that line is just getting going. I still think there's a lot of growth in that line. They

haven't found complete chemistry just yet. But you can see some of the output that they've had and how dangerous they are off the rush. I would have to say they're probably one of the fastest lines in the National Hockey League. When you look at lines, and you've seen so many over the years, both as a player, manager, I've always been of the belief that the most successful lines exist when you have three players that can do three distinct things. And I'll go back like old school and think of like Trache did something different than

Bossie, who did something different than Gilles. And that's why that all worked. do you in your mind follow the same philosophy yeah i do i don't think they can all do the same thing they trip over each other and i think that's a it's a great it's a great point by you and they've all got to do a little bit different um but sometimes you you do build lines where okay you're not they're not going to the net and you get to sit down and have a chat with them and i think our coach andre ternay has done a great job is like hey dylan gunther wants to play with coolly coolie wants to play with dylan gunther and peturka wants to play with both you guys somebody's got to go

the net. You know, if you all want to play together, somebody's got to go to the net. You know, if you want bread, you go to the bakery, you want money, go to the bank, you want goals, you got to go to the front of the net. So it's that simple. So, you know, if you guys want to play together, somebody's got to go to the net. And I think they've done a really great job of responding to that and really kind of, you know, they've got speed. Speed's hard to defend. You know, speed catches you when you're dead on the end of a shift and, you know, they're going the other way, 500 miles an hour. You know, you know, you know, you're going. You know, you watch those guys in practice.

It's crazy what they can accomplish with the speed. And that's one thing systems can't really defend against the speed. And so I think, you know, we're a fast team, you know, from Michael Carconio and on a fourth line to JJ Petirka or Keller or, you know, in Smalti, they can all push the pace. So I do think that we're getting to be an elite skating team and we're going to continue building on that. I don't think our team is fully complete. I think we're about 60% built.

We've still got some kids coming and still want to push even more. The one thing that we do wonder about this year's edition of the Utah Mammoth, now that they're, as other teams sort of are having a hard time getting it together, you seem to be quite content to take those spots and to take those points. Thank you very much. Given where this organization has been and now what it has the ability to do, I have a hard time believing that in your mind, that this team is anywhere close to done.

Should we expect the mammoth to be an active player this year? Well, every morning as a GM, you wake up, the first thought that goes through your head is how to make your team better. You know, so we're, you know, we definitely have a ton of picks still to go, a ton of assets and prospects. You know, we're pretty flexible organization. We didn't tie ourselves up with deals that were, you know, huge free agent deals. in the summer. We do have a lot of flexibility. So I do think, you know, if we ever have a chance,

we certainly won't look a way to add to make our team better. We're always going to look to improve. You know, obviously there's a timeline and you've got to be smart about it. You know, there's some things you get excited about. And then you're like, I'm not sure I want to go down that road for the next seven or eight years. So, you know, we have a timeline of our age of our kids. Like, you know, I'll tell you, we started the game yesterday. We had Simashev was 20, you know, Cooley's 21, Gunther 22, and J.J. Paterka, 23.

And the old guy in the line was Sergathev at 27. So we're going to stick to that timeline in that time frame and try to acquire players that can help us win in that timeline. You mentioned Andre Tournier a second ago. I used to love watching his practices when he ran the Ottawa 67s. Now, mind you, he had a really highly skilled team. you know if it weren't for COVID you know we were all waiting for this great showdown with them in Peterborough these two powerhouses

in the OHL and oh it just would have been fantastic unfortunately we never got it but I used to love watching his practices and what I really loved Bill was watching how he talked to kids like how he talked to young athletes and you just talked about that demographic that main demographic that your team fits

into and I look at that and I say you know this is this is a perfect NHL team for Bear what have you noticed about him with this team? Well, he set the culture from day one coming in. We're going to practice hard. We're going to work.

We're going to go to work. And that hasn't changed to where he is now. And he's done a great job at, you know, raising the kids the right way and making them accountable, making sure they had to earn their ice time and their situations that they got put in. You know, Logan Cooley is a prime example of earning his ice time and earning his way through it and raising him right. And that's on bear.

He's done a great job, you know, and there are some lean years there, and he was able to communicate and not leave scars, and that's what he does best. And he's got a motivated young, hungry group here that are pushing, and that has a lot to do with the way that he practices and relates to the players. I want to ask you about another coach. Corey Schwab. Corey Schwab is not a big self-promoter.

I know he doesn't get talked. about in the circles that he probably should as far as being a goalie coach. And this goes back to the coyotes and even back to San Jose. Like he's helped in Aiden Hill Stanley Cup, Darcy Kempers, Stanley. Like he's really graduated and developed a lot of goaltenders that are around the NHL that he still has his fingerprints all over. He's pretty laid back guys, you know. What do you think everybody should know by now about Corey Schwab, the great

goaltending coach that never gets talked about? at all. Yeah, he is a great goaltending coach, and he's certainly helped a lot of goaltenders go the right way coming out of here. And, you know, whether he's working with anti-ranza at the time and just making those guys the best that they can be, it's a big part of his teaching technique in the way that he works. And he, you know, he provides consistency every single day. He's extremely protective of his goaltetters in the meeting. One thing that you left out is he's got a little stubbornness and a little bit of a temper, which I do like he he definitely has the voice of the goaltender and definitely sticking up for the

goaltender in those meetings for sure but his consistency in what he provides and he brings out the best in those goaltenders and I think the goaltenders trust him you know that they know that he's not trying to change your style they're just trying to perfect it I remember uh having a conversation once with with Doug mclean when we worked together and we were talking about meetings you know with with the goaltending coach and he would say that that Walmsley after after every goal, he'd always say, oh, that was tipped. Oh, that was deflected. Oh, that was tipped.

And Doug would always say, does every tip have to go in? Does every single tip have to go in? Is Corey the, well, that was tipped or he was screened or he was deflected? Is it like that type of feedback from the goalie coach? Well, he definitely lets you know, you know, about that side of it, what they were experiencing. And I think that's the strength of Schwabie is that he definitely rolls out his opinion and he sees it through the goaltender's eyes. I think he's pretty good at getting his goaltenders to work hard and be honest in practice.

I always said you can see a lot in practice in your goaltenders, whether it's pregame skate. You know which ones are dialed in, and that's what I think his strength is, is getting his goaltenders to compete in practice and get the right structure, and then they show up on game day and they get it done. A couple more for you before I let you get on with your afternoon. I'm just going to put this out there and see how you react.

Nick Schmaltz leads the league in points, Bill. It's a great thing. Yeah, it's a great thing. Well, Nick's unreal kid, you know, I've known him for a long time. You know, and he's a quiet kid too. You know, he's got an intercompetitiveness about him. He put a lot of time and effort into working hard this summer. And I think the thing that you love about what he did was he attacked it the right way.

He got bigger and stronger. and he put a lot of time into being better around the front of the net. I think he led the slot chances last year in the National Hockey League. So he went back and cleaned it up and he showed a tremendous amount of finish this year around the tough areas in front of the net. But that's a credit to him. You know, confidence comes from a source, and his source was his work ethic and what he accomplished this summer.

It's great to see. Last one for you. Who do you think? that as much as, you know, Petrka and Kooley and Sargachev and Clayton Kelle, you haven't talked about Clayton Keller. Clayton Kelly, like all the headline makers on Utah

all get discussed. Who do you think that we're sleeping on on your team? Like, I love Jack McBell. You have some guys that, like, play hard. I love Jack McBain and Lawson Krause and Kevin Stenland. Like, who do you think that we're all missing here? Take a swipe at the media, Bill.

Who are we missing? Yeah, well, we got some heart and soul guys like Sean Dursy, you know, that just bleed behind the scenes for our team. You know, he's injured now, but when he's in there, man, it's all in. It's all in blocking shots any way he can to help us win. The kid that you probably are not aware of a little bit that he's not going to put up huge amount of points, but, you know, he's, to me, he's like Pareko. We drafted him with Simashev. You know, he played won a championship in the KCHO.

He's a huge man. He goes about 6.5, 2.30. He's the best skating big man, D man. He was covering Cairo and the other night, McKinnon. And, you know, they kind of had that look like, hey, this guy's still with me. He's a big man that provides a great shutdown. So he's not going to stand out and, you know, and tear the world apart. But we need him to shut down the other team's best lines. And he's a big man. And when you watch his skating, you're like, wow, he can move. He's massive. He's a large, large human being. Bill, thanks for this. Your team continues to be a lot of fun to watch. Keep it rolling. Looks good to shake things up in the Western Conference.

Thanks for stopping by today. Thanks very much for having me. Appreciate being on. I said 16 hours last night every day this week, every day this month. I can't get out my head. style ambitions day to day because you can call it all right I went to the dark man

and tried to give me a little medicine I'm like now and that's fine I'm not against those methods but it knew it's me and myself and how this is going to be fixed in my mind I'm too on a bracket I turned on the music

I do want to bang it I'm doing on the news it. It's enough, I'll battle that you sometimes losing It's been on the days that we're wrong