The Utah Mammoth have hired two-time Stanley Cup champion Adam Foote as an assistant coach.
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They have also signed head coach André Tourigny to a multi-year contract extension and, as previously reported by the Deseret News, they have signed assistant coach Blaine Forsythe to a multi-year extension.
Exact terms of coaching contracts in the NHL are not released publicly.
Mario Duhamel, who has spent five years as an assistant coach with both the Mammoth and the Arizona Coyotes, remains under contract with the organization, but he will not be behind the bench next season. He and the organization are working to determine his role going forward.
Who is Adam Foote?
Foote, 54, spent the 2025-26 season as the head coach of the last-place Vancouver Canucks. He served as an assistant coach with the Canucks the prior two and a half seasons — including 2024, when they fell a goal shy of a Western Conference Final appearance.
Foote draws on 19 seasons’ worth of playing experience, where he was one of the league’s premier shutdown defensemen. He played major roles in the Colorado Avalanche’s Stanley Cup wins in 1996 and 2001, as well as Team Canada’s gold medal in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
He worked alongside Mammoth head coach André Tourigny and Duhamel with the Colorado Avalanche from 2013-15. Foote was a development consultant, while Tourigny was an assistant coach and Duhamel was a video coach.
GM Bill Armstrong said in a press release that Foote will “bring a fresh perspective to our room backed by years of experience as both a player and coach.”
As an assistant in Vancouver, Foote’s primary responsibility was to work with the defensemen. It was under his watch that Quinn Hughes blossomed into an all-out superstar, rather than just a good defenseman. That culminated in Hughes’ 2024 Norris Trophy win as the NHL’s best defenseman, scoring 92 points in 82 games and allowing just 66 goals against at-even strength.
With the Mammoth, there’s potential for Foote to elevate Mikhail Sergachev in a similar way. Perhaps he’s not a 90-point guy, but he probably has the potential to jump into the league’s upper echelon of defensemen.
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Foote also led the Canucks’ penalty kill when he was an assistant coach there. The Canucks were the 11th-best PK team in the league during Foote’s tenure in that position, and they finished third in the league in that category in his last year in the role.
The Mammoth finished 19th on the penalty kill last season, so there’s plenty of room for improvement with Foote running the PK meetings.
How much should Mammoth fans read into Adam Foote’s head coaching tenure with the Canucks?
A one-and-done season as a head coach is generally not seen favorably, and finishing in last place makes it even worse. But Mammoth fans shouldn’t worry about that too much.
The transition from assistant to head coach on the same team can be difficult because you go from being the good cop to the bad cop. That difference in dynamic with your players can put strain on relationships, making it hard to do the job effectively.
Additionally, Foote was handed a roster full of players who were probably better suited for AHL action, rather than NHL. A combination of injuries and internal issues made that necessary.
“It was a challenging year on several fronts and truthfully, Adam and his staff were dealt a very difficult hand,” said new Canucks GM Ryan Johnson.
With a “good cop” role and much more talent at his disposal, the deck should favor Foote more than it did last season.
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