Management, Coaches, Players on Media Day

The Utah Mammoth’s 2025 Training Camp is underway. On the first day of camp, President of Hockey Operations Chirs Armstrong, General Manager Bill Armstrong, Head Coach André Tourigny, and select players met with the media. Below are some highlights from their media availability.

President of Hockey Operations Chris Armstrong and General Manager Bill Armstrong

Chris Armstrong on building a winning team in Utah:

“It’s an ongoing process we’re building towards sustaining championship contending success. That takes time. What I love about what everybody’s brought to the table across the organization is the excitement, enthusiasm for building something new and building something meaningful (for) the people here in Utah, to represent this state. We talked about it again in this meeting this morning with the players. There’s so much pride here that Utah has an NHL team. We feel it, people care, they show up. It’s a tremendous source of motivation for everything that we do to continue to push and to get better and to give that love and enthusiasm back to our fans, to the community.”

Bill Armstrong gave an update on Logan Cooley contract negotiations:

“We’ve had great conversations with Logan and his side, and they’ve been tremendously helpful and professional and Logan, as a young man, has been nothing but great. So, we’ll move (with it), there’s no rush. It’s one of those things that’ll happen. It’s just at our time right now, there’s nobody that’s kind of made that step. I think there’s more data points that’ll come in that will make the whole league feel better about the contracts that they’re offering that era of player that got drafted at that time.”

Chris Armstrong on Clayton Keller’s first season as Captain and his leadership:

“I think it was one of the most under the radar 90-point seasons in the league. It’s completely validated. Our belief that Keller would be able to handle the responsibility of being the captain, I commend him for the way that he handled that responsibility. The way that he reached out for guidance and help and support in that role. And the way that he handled the moments throughout the season where maybe things weren’t necessarily going the way he would like them to for himself personally, but was still able to be the leader we needed him to be, and find his game through those tougher moments. We hope he can repeat and improve on his production but sometimes there’s more value in what he can do as a leader and how he can help us move this group forward and get more out of everybody else.”

Bill Armstrong on heading into training camp for year two:

“I feel like we’ve been here for 15 years. I look out and I see the fan base with the jerseys on (it’s) enchanting. It’s unbelievable how it’s taken shape, the passion for hockey here has been incredible. I think we are settled a little bit more and the team’s taking a step. You’re a little bit more anxious at this time in a good way. It’s almost like it’s the night before Christmas. You want to see what’s underneath the tree.”

Head Coach André Tourigny

André Tourigny discussed the competition in camp:

“Improvement of our team is coming from within first. That’s the first thing we expect. We expect our players to be better, we expect our players to be more mature, to understand more (of the) complex situation. That’s number one. Two, we had great additions (this offseason) who will create even more competition on the team, and we have young players who are really talented, who hopefully will push for a spot on the team. From there, that creates a really good competition. You can call that a problem, but it’s a really good problem to have.”

Captain Clayton Keller:

Clayton Keller discusses the excitement heading into this season:

“It’s certainly nice to be settled in and we have such an amazing group of guys, even the management, coaches, it’s just a special group. You could tell there’s a lot of excitement this year and we’re settled, we have a team name, practice rink, like everything just came into place perfectly, so we’re all super excited.”

Associate Captain Lawson Crouse

As it’s the team’s second year in Utah, they’re taking momentum from multiple places and turning that into confidence and higher expectations:

"The way that we played coming down the stretch last year, I think that gave us hope last year. Now we're turning that hope into confidence. Our expectations are way higher."

Alternate Captain Mikhail Sergachev

When it comes to the next steps for this group, Mikhail Sergachev discussed consistency:

“Taking the right steps at the right time. Bringing the culture up within the team in the locker room, playing the right way … taking the right approach for the game. Consistency is a big thing.”

Forward Dylan Guenther

Dylan Guenther’s offseason training focused on building strength and speed. The forward believes that it will translate with his scoring, especially down low:

“Holding on to pucks down low, getting inside more. I think scoring (greasier) goals, scoring more in tight. That's what I'm good at, shooting it, and finding different ways to score & being more well-rounded that way.”

Forward Logan Cooley

Logan Cooley discussed what he wants to achieve this season:

“Each year taking a step and this is no different. I want to take an even bigger step and increase that (point) total even more. I’m motivated, I’m hungry, I want to become one of the best players in this league. I’m excited to continue to get better, and continue to put in the work to make sure I accomplish it.”

Goaltender Karel Vejmelka

Karel Vejmelka discussed using past experiences to be consistent with his play:

“I think it’s really important for me to use those kind of experiences (that) I had from last year. Just focus (on) the details, which worked for me, just focusing for those kind of details where it’s really important. I would say the most important thing is mindset, winning mindset and play every game as a game seven.”

Defenseman Sean Durzi

Sean Durzi discussed the competition level within the blueline and the strength of that group:

“I think we’re an experienced group. For myself, another year older, another year, gone through some crazy experiences last year, another year in the league … we have guys who’ve lifted Stanley Cups on our back end, more than guys who haven’t. So that’s a big group, a very experienced group. We have a lot of young guys pushing for jobs and I think the competitiveness is only going to push us to the next level and help everybody in the situation. That’s all you could ask for as a player.”

Forward JJ Peterka

JJ Peterka discussed his mindset going into another season:

“I’m just trying to get better every day. It’s always the main goal and it’s good we have a really competitive group here. I think just compete and try to be the best on the ice every day to just push each other more and more.”