The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Utah Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Utah Mammoth General Manager Bill Armstrong joins Jeff Marek on The Sheet to discuss one of the wildest NHL offseasons in recent memory and how the league's rapidly rising salary cap has changed the landscape for general managers. Armstrong shares his perspective on the explosion of player salaries, blockbuster trades, offer sheets, and massive contracts, along with the challenges of building a competitive roster in today's NHL. The conversation then shifts to the Utah Mammoth, as Armstrong reflects on the team's offseason moves, their encouraging start to the 2026-27 season, the development of their young core, expectations for the year ahead, and what could still be on the horizon as Utah looks to take the next step. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He is, of course, the general manager of the Utah Mammoth. And we'll ignore a last night, Bill. And we'll talk. You know what, though? It's fun. First of all, thanks so much for stopping by. And I always appreciate your time and attention here. And lots to get to with Utah.

Do you just sort of chalk those up to, like, those games happen? It's just the course of an early in the season? Yes. And no, you know, you, it's an interesting one when you're breaking that one down because your team's playing pretty well, and you have to have a slip on P&PK and goalkeeping, and you've got to look past it a little bit, but you've got to clean up a few of the things that, you know,

you don't want to see repeat itself. So I think it's a tricky day for coaches. They've got to prepare the group. You know, we've got a chance to get what we need to out of this road trip with a good win against Buffalo and then home. So it's a huge game for us tomorrow, and we've got to refocus on that. But our coaches do a good job.

you know, making sure that they get what they need from the meetings today and move past it and be ready for tomorrow. It's, you know, I've said countless times and now I have to use the number 84 instead of 82, that there's, there's no such thing as it, formerly 82, now 84 a game schedule. It's 84 one game schedules. Like it feels like every single game is like its own season. Like you remember, Bill, like when you played, you can, you used to be able to ease into a season. right? Like, okay, it's still, we don't hear it's still early anymore. We hear, you know, Bill Armstrong is saying, no, we got to clean this up and we got to make, you know, pay attention to our knitting here. And like, the idea of easing into a season, Bill, is, is gone. Like, that's, that's foreign now. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, there's so much data you read in, and in trying to get ahead of the trends that are coming your way on your team. And I think it's just a different era, you know, to play more games. And it's so competitive. I mean, you know, the NHL is such a humbling league because you can, you can absolutely crush it one night and dominate and then absolutely get killed the next night. You know, you're on the road.

You're dealing with travel delays, you know, and just being tired from the road schedule. It's just very humbling league. And you do have to make sure that, you know, when you're going through, you know, good times or bad times, you know, you don't get too high and too low. And you kind of stay, you know, right in the middle and you just keep getting better all the time. So that's a lot easier said than done. You know, I was just talking to Brian Burke before he came on. He joins me every Friday. And he sends his best.

And, you know, he had an interesting offer sheet situation once upon a time with Kevin Lowe and Barna fight threats and all these types of things. I don't think that it was similar between you and Sunny Ameta. But I'm curious, like, what happens when you get an offer sheet for one of your players? like what goes through your mind right away. I know you want to take the emotion out of it probably, but like what happened? What happened when you got that? Well, you know, like it's everybody just has to understand.

It's in the rules. You know, it's in the CBA. You can do this. So teams are going to do it more and more. And like you said, you've got to take the emotion out and figure out the problem and kind of identify it and how are we going to move through it? What are we going to?

What's our next step? And so those that we kind of just work through. and, you know, obviously match the offer sheet because Berid's an important player on our team and where we're moving to and he always has been. So, you know, there's no hard feelings on our side. I think you're going to see it more and more. I think it comes down a strategy to not let yourself be set up for an offer sheet. You know, and there's deals to be done.

You've got to make sure you do your homework and get in there early and take care of business because it's definitely something that is the new trend in the national hockey league, and I think it's here to stay. Yeah, you know, I think we all agree with you. And I've, you know what I've kind of equated to, Bill? I've kind of equated it to a hockey fight and that it's not so much the fight itself, as much as it is the threat of the fight that can change behavior. You know what I mean?

Like, we just went in through a summer where everything was, you know, we just had Chris Patrick talked about this at nashl.com and the in the off season about like the Anaheim situation scared a lot of people and he wanted to make sure he got business done and we saw deals that were signed because of it like is the threat of the offer sheet to a manager the equivalent of the threat of a fight for a player does it feel the same way it does i i think you know you you know it's it's you know it's like the schoolyard fight you're going to get into and it's sitting in your all day in class because you know, success is going to happen in about 20 minutes

and you're nervous to go outside. And I think it's the same. I mean, I think with the off-sheets that, you know, are going to happen here, they're definitely going to be way on GM's mind when they're approaching the player about getting a deal done. But, you know, hopefully if, you know, you like your player and you see some signs from your player

that he's going to be really good and you're going to help your franchise, you've got to take that step to go sign them. When we look at some of the numbers right now, too, I think I keep saying here and other places, too, like, I just think we need to sort of recalibrate ourselves to the new numbers and they're going to get a lift like every summer. There's sticker shock to a lot of these new contracts that we look at. And then eventually, like, we can all remember when Nathan McKinney got $6 million and we all went, whoa. And then by the time he won the Salele Cup, it was like, $6 million, the biggest bargain in the NHL. Like there is an element of everybody just needing to adjust here, right? Yeah, there's a sticker shock for sure.

Some of the deals that you get, you know, you're like, oh my God, you know, we're going to, you know, go into the market and do this. And now you look back and you're like, it's just the movement of money, the growth in the cap. It's, you know, it's just a part of doing business. And I think we just all have to kind of get over that sticker shock. I do think there's also an element of, listen, at the end of the day, if you want to build a championship roster, you have to make sure. that everybody fits in, you know, to that piece of puzzle or the pizza, as we call it, you know, if one guy comes in and takes all the slices of pizza and nobody else is going to eat. So if you want to be a championship team and you want to, you know, the way that we are built,

we cut teams with a thousand different blades from the first line to the fourth line and 60 and two good goaltenders. So we need money to spread around. So for us, it's just about being smart, making sure that we have that right thought process that we're signing players. and also trying to get our players to work with us a little bit in the sense of understanding that we're trying to build a championship roster. You know, one of the interesting things that we've seen with your team here because we put the sort of premium on youth. Like look at all the players that are coming here.

But I thought it was really interesting the way, you know, in the offseason, whether it was, you know, Vincent Trocheck or Andrews Lee. It's like, you know, Bill's going out here to balance the youth with guys in there. in their early 30s, like heading, heading into the summer, like how much, you know, deliberately did you look at and say, yeah, we got a, for every coolly we have, we have to have, we have to have a trocheque along with them. It's kind of the thought process. And it goes back to, you know, my days with St. Louis.

We had Robert Thomas. He was a young kid coming out of junior, tremendous centerman. But, you know, playing the national hockey league is a whole lot different than playing in the OHL. and we had Tyler Bozac right beside him. And he kind of guided him through the process. And, you know, they played on a line together. It was huge to kind of give them that right veteran, you know. And it's hard in the National Hockey League when you're going rookie to rookie on a pass

and you're doing that for 84 games a year. It's hard grind. If we can get to the veterans that, you know, add in what we need and that are good role models and good leaders, it really helps your team. And you can see that with adding Lee and Trocheck for our group. It's what we needed. They're not only good leaders, they're good players and good people. And they're going to help guide some of our younger players through the tough times

and help them become pros and hopefully champions. It was a big one last season, obviously, for the mammoth, getting to the playoffs, the series against the Vegas Golden Knights. And it's interesting, Berkey was just saying before he came on, you know, Anaheim makes the playoffs while he's there and all of a sudden the next year, the expectations rise. but you want that. Like he was saying like, yeah, but like that, that's fun that you can't sneak up on anybody anymore. Like Utah, and I'm sure you read all the preseason predictions from, you know, big brains on our side of it.

Oh, watch Utah. Utah is coming. Like all the, at the end of the day, too, like, you know you can't sneak up on anybody anymore. And that's a compliment. Yeah, it is a compliment. And, you know, I think for us, we're going into buildings. Nobody's, nobody's like, oh, I wonder if they're going to be good. Like, they know we've got a good team.

and there's some confidence with our group. I think at the end of the day, we used to run into the backup goaltender and the rookie parties, and we didn't really have that, you know, the real concern that we could beat teams, and now you've seen we've taken that step. So I've really liked with our group,

they've really taken a step, and you can feel that confidence. And I think for expectations, you know, we expect to be a really good team, a team that can get back into the playoffs. And it's hard to get into the playoffs, so we don't treat that lightly. goal is and expectations to get back into the playoffs and see where we can go from there.

Do you consider your team in the conversation with the Colorado's, the Dallases, the Minnesota's, those mainstays in the in the in the in the in the division? Do you consider yourselves there now? Yeah. Well, you got some good questions today. Sorry, but. Berkey must have got you all worked up. No, you know what it is? It's, it's your former agent who said make sure you're hard on bill i had him since i was 14 years 14 years old he was i know what you're talking about yeah but it's a great question because when we do go into those games now we expect to win you know and that's a great thing and um you know when we play the big boys you know any team in the national hockey league we're we're going into the game expecting to

win we don't we don't think oh they're they're a little bit better than us we want to we want to play our game, our style, with our culture, and we think we can beat any team in the National Hockey League. And that's, that's, that's, that's something I, I feel from our group. It's taken a long time to get that feeling. We've been out of for a while. And now when we come to the rink, you can feel it, like we get a chance and we've got the ability to beat anybody in the National Hockey League.

You know, one of the things about, about the situation that you find yourself in now with Utah and previously with the coyotes. Like, there's a, I know, how do I, how do I, how do I, how do I, how do you? do I say this. Like, you have, right, Ryan Smith's your owner, right? Like, and, and part of that is, like, this is like, you're walking through the desert and you find a glass of water and like, oh, finally. Like, and I'm trying, I'm trying to be polite about, about Arizona in that situation. Yeah. Um, but like, how profoundly different does it feel for you being able to do your job.

Like, we used to make the joke about, you know, teams that, like, don't let players go too deep in the offensive zone, you know, bungee cords on the players. Don't let them, don't let them go deep, keep them close. It must feel like the bungee cords got taken off. Like, you would go to a certain point with the coyotes and then get snapped back. And that's gone now. Yeah. And you're right.

It's, it's a game changer for us to have Ryan and Ash Smith and SEC. What they've done, there's no excuses in our organization. You go in our practice facility. You know, we have a car wash for the. players. We got a barbershop for the players. We got their dry cleaning, you know, is available, you know, it's just, it's really a super setup. It's really, you know, we've got some of the best food made by our chefs every day for our players. You name it, it's available. And it's an incredible facility, our Prax facility. Then you go down at Delta Center and it's sold out and, you know,

they renovated it. We're really very fortunate to be in an organization that provides. absolutely everything and there's zero excuses. And that's the greatest thing about, you know, being the GM and you're walking through the door in Utah's. We don't have any excuses. You know, we come to the rink every day thinking that we have the best of the best and we expect to beat the best in the National Hockey League. And like you said, those expectations are on, but in a good way.

We want them. Before I let you go, right now we're all wondering about a number of different players and trade scenarios. I mean, you know trades are sort of. of catnip for our side of the industry and for hockey fans as well. Just curious, like how busy is it right now with talk? Like normally we have to wait until November

until things really start to get the system, it starts to get lubricated, we start to get conversations. How frisky is it right now? And not that I think you're going to tell us what it is, but is there something out there that would stun everybody that might happen? Ha ha. You know, there's, it's just a different,

you know, year this year, with as many guys have, you know, been in that holding out from their teams and not coming into play for their team. So it's been a little bit different in that. And there's been players, it's been a vulnerable. But, you know, it's tough to make moves. Everybody's got their full roster and full lineup going right now. And it's one of those things that you, you've kind of got to let your team settle in and see how they play to see what you need. So it's really, for a lot of games, probably hard to make some, some tough, tough decisions right now. based upon they're still learning their teams and seeing how good their team is and what the strength and weakness of their clubs are.

So it's going to take a little bit of time to play itself out. But yeah, there's no blockbusters that I know of. We'll see. Listen, it was, I got to me. I've never seen a summer like this. I can't imagine what it was like from your perch, but I never saw summer like that, nor that I see one coming. But it was, it was the weirdest summer I've ever seen covering this game. Yeah, it was a unique summer

And there was a lot of money pumped into the system And it showed And you know, it was it was a truly entertaining With some of the offer sheets in the way that it played out So, you know, let's see what the rest of the season brings You never know there's been a lot of movement In the National Hockey League And we'll see how it goes

Absolutely, as always thanks for your time Congratulations on the early success Notwithstanding last night, I understand but continue to listen continue success with the mammoth like it's it's a fun team to watch and it's really cool to see an organization hitting its stride so congrats bill oh thank you very much thanks for having me appreciate it