Now that the Utah Mammoth have matched the Barrett Hayton offer sheet, they have as many as eight centers to slot into their four spots. That’s a great problem to have.
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Even with that much depth, general manager Bill Armstrong wanted to keep Hayton around. Mammoth fans might remember training camp ahead of last season, when the team experienced so many injuries that Nick Schmaltz had to move to the middle from the wing.
As well as it worked out to suddenly have a bona fide first-line center, Armstrong doesn’t want to go through that again.
“If we had to go to the market, especially around the trade deadline, and go get somebody that can do a little bit of everything and play from your first line to your third line, you’re looking at paying a price of a first-rounder-plus — and you’ve got you’ve got to beat out eight other teams at the deadline to get that player, so it’s maybe even more,“ Armstrong explained during a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
“What we’ve done here in this particular situation is create an understanding of how valuable Barrett Hayton was from the get-go.”
Armstrong mentioned that “probably half” of the teams in the NHL have called him this offseason to see if Hayton was available.
While Hayton’s situation prevents the Mammoth from trading him for the entire duration of the one-year contract, Armstrong wasn’t ready to let him go for the second-round pick that would have served as compensation on the offer sheet.
“When you’re on the inside with our coaches and building the club, (Hayton) does a lot of things that people can’t see,” Armstrong said. “He’s a valuable piece of our team and somebody that we believe we can move forward with and help us win a championship.”
Barrett Hayton, ALL IN!
Tied up 1-1. pic.twitter.com/BGADovTC1c
— Utah Mammoth (@utahmammoth) April 13, 2025
What will the Utah Mammoth’s depth chart look like?
Mammoth fans have spent the last week speculating where newly acquired Vincent Trocheck will fit in the lineup. Will he play center or be bumped to the wing? Will he be in the top six, or will he slide to the lower half of the lineup?
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Armstrong did everyone a huge favor by laying out his projections of the team’s four centers.
“I feel like we’ve got some of the best center depth in the National Hockey League,” he said. “Starting at Nick Schmaltz on the number one line, (Logan) Cooley at the second line, Hayton on the third line and (Kevin) Stenlund on the fourth.”
While line combinations aren’t completely decided in July, it does seem that the tentative plan is for Trocheck to start on the wing.
Armstrong often talks about how important it is to have two guys on each line who can take face-offs, and a structure like this makes it possible for them to do that.
The Mammoth finished 23rd in the league in draws last season at 49.2%.
The next question, which has swirled around Mammoth land the last few days, is where incoming young guns Tij Iginla and Caleb Desnoyers fit into the equation with the addition of Trocheck and the returns of Hayton and Stenlund.
Will they have the opportunity to make the NHL out of training camp, or is the tentative plan for them to start the season in the AHL?
Armstrong anticipates that they would both start on the wing.
“Caleb and Tij have the ability to come in and make our team,” he said. “Both can play wing, both can play opposite sides. There’s a lot of flexibility for our club, but there (are) openings.
“When you have somebody that comes in and pushes to make your team, you can always make openings for that player.”
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