The NHL Draft is days away and the Utah Mammoth will add more prospects to the organization player pool over the weekend. Below is a breakdown of everything you need to know heading into this year’s Draft.
The Basics
The Draft is split up between two days and kicks off this weekend. Round 1 is Friday night at 5 p.m. MT while Rounds 2-7 are on Saturday starting at 9 a.m. MT.
This year’s draft will take place at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, N.Y. Eligible players, their families, and representatives from each NHL team will be in attendance; however, since it’s a decentralized draft, the majority of each team’s staff will be in their home markets.
Every year, NHL Central Scouting releases their prospect rankings list. Gavin McKenna is the top ranked North American skater while Ivan Stenberg leads the international skaters list. Brady Knowling is the top NA goaltender, and Dmitri Borichev is the top-ranked international goaltender.
On Friday, tune into ESPN and ESPN+ to watch Round 1. NHL Network and ESPN+ will have Saturday’s Draft coverage.
Utah’s Draft
Utah has seven picks this year: 19th overall (Round 1), 83rd overall (R3), 96th overall (R3, from CAR), 115th overall (R4), 130th overall (R5, from CHI), 147th overall (R5), and 211th overall (R7).
This is Utah’s third draft in franchise history and the Mammoth will pick 19th overall for the first time. This will be the fourth time in which the Mammoth have selected a player in the First Round of the Draft. Previously, Utah has picked Caleb Desnoyers (2025 Draft, fourth-overall), Tij Iginla (2024 Draft, sixth-overall), and Cole Beaudoin (2024 Draft, 24th-overall).
The Process
To prepare for the NHL Draft, it takes an entire team. Utah’s scouts spend every hockey season assessing draft-eligible players and future stars. Their hard work supports Utah’s management and hockey operations staff throughout this process.
“They are an engine,” General Manager Bill Armstrong said of Utah’s scouts. “They have probably one of the most important departments when you go through this process. You deal with those guys just at certain times of the year, and we have great faith in them and what they’ve been able to put on the board since I’ve become GM. I think they’re the guys behind the scenes that drive in the middle of the night, they’re dodging logging trucks through ice, and delayed flights, you name it what they experience in a year. They’re the happiest guys in the world. They’re the hardest workers in the world, and they certainly have a huge impact on our organization come draft time.”
Director of Amateur Scouting Darryl Plandowski will run his sixth draft with Bill Armstrong. Together, the pair have drafted 10 players to play an NHL game since teaming up together in 2021 while with the Arizona Coyotes at the time. Only three teams have drafted more players to play an NHL game since that time.
Plandowski previously helped lead the draft process for the Tampa Bay Lightning, winning a Stanley Cup with the organization in 2020.
“He’s a worker, number one,” Armstrong said about Plandowski. “In that job when you’re leading the amateur staff, you’ve got to be a guy that goes out there and works. And you’ve got to really manage people. He’s done a great job of that and bringing out the best in the scouting staff and listening to what they say and putting the players in the right order. He’s got a wealth of knowledge. Obviously, when he helped build Tampa Bay and get them (to) winning a Stanley Cup. So, he’s got a huge impact on this organization and drafting players and his knowledge. We reaped the benefits of all his knowledge and his years that he’s accumulated on the road, scouting. So, he has a huge impact for us and he’ll go to the mic and swing away here.”
A Different Year
For the first time in Utah’s history, the team will not have a top-10 pick after the Mammoth qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season. However, Armstrong shared how the organization’s strategy doesn’t change.
“We hope (we get) a really good player,” Armstrong explained. “I think the strategy doesn’t change that much in the sense that, when you get into that 19 (range) you’re really studying what’s going to be around the area, who’s coming your way. That kind of stays the same. And you just get comfortable with the talent level that’s around that area and you do as much homework as you can and you attack it. I think it’s an exciting time, this time of year, knowing you’re going to get some of the guys on the board. It’s a decent draft this year. I think our guys are excited about some of the guys that could come our way.”
Armstrong also shared his message to the scouting staff about a lower first round pick this year.
“I think they’ve been spoiled picking in the top-10 every single year,” Armstrong smiled. “They’ve done a great job and now it’s time to make some hay a little further back. I said to the staff, we were able to keep our first rounder. We made it through the process of acquiring players at the deadline and still kept our first round pick. I think that showed a lot of faith in what they could do with that first rounder.
It’s a different area that we’re picking in, but it’s an area where we feel like we can get a good player that can make a difference,” Armstrong continued. “No matter how many picks we have, we have to find ways to get players out of the draft and that’s the key. We’re going to get into an ear where we don’t have those high picks and we don’t have as many, so we have to make sure that we make hay on the ones we do have.”
Stay tuned to the Utah Mammoth’s social media channels and *UtahMammoth.com* for full coverage from the 2026 NHL Draft!
