Category: NHL

Utah General Manager Bill Armstrong was all smiles following the 2025 NHL Draft Lottery which saw his team steal the 4th pick in the June 27 draft. (photo from the author Tom Walker)

By Tom Walker

SALT LAKE CITY–In Monday’s first round of the 2025 NHL Draft Lottery which was broadcast live on ESPN, the New York Islanders with their 3.5% chance of winning came out on top, leapfrogging from the 10th position over the San Jose Sharks (18.5%) and Chicago Blackhawks (13.5%) which had respectively won the previous two draft lotteries.

It remains unknown if Utah Hockey Club General Manager Bill Armstrong tapped into the power of the Dark Side of the Force to influence the second round of the lottery, but in the aftermath of “May the Fourth” which is informally recognized as Star Wars Day, Utah owned “Revenge of the Fifth” when the final ping pong ball enabled the team which had just 1.5% chance of improving its position to move up the maximum possible distance to 4th from 14.

Last week Utah accidentally leaked that it might soon adopt the “Mammoth” nickname next season, but following their heist in the draft lottery, perhaps the “Outlaws” deserve renewed consideration.

Moments following the selection process, Utah General Manager Bill Armstrong held a Zoom call with local media to discuss the outcome.

Armstrong was exuberant in his opening remarks.  “To pick at four … A couple of seconds ago we were just like ten back, so it still hasn’t sunk in – but what a great opportunity for us to be able to move up that far in the draft, and now we’re right up at the top of the draft.  This is an exciting moment for us.  It’s a game changer for us.  I can’t wait to huddle with the scouts tomorrow and go over it.  Obviously we’ve been studying the players that were available to us, where we thought they’d fall.  Now we’re going to leap up a little bit and it’s going to be exciting times.  Just great stuff for the franchise.  I can’t express in words on the excitement of when that happened, and the opportunity in front of us.”

How does the new draft position change things?  “Your mind just totally switches to who’s available that you can get at four.  …  It’s gonna be a great challenge for us to kind of go back and look at some of the players that are available at that spot and go to work.”

Armstrong talked about the typical mindset going into the draft of teams which fall out of contention with weeks to go in the season  Utah remained mathematically viable until the final days of the regular season, and did not expect to be in this position looking forward to the draft.  Armstrong said, “We were a pretty good team that chased it down the stretch playing meaningful games and chasing a playoff spot, and we’re getting to that point where we’re becoming a really good team that’s gonna have a chance to get into the playoffs, and so not only knowing that we have that in front of us with a really good team and some really good prospects coming, but the fact that we’re picking at four again and going into free agency, these are exciting times for Utah.”

For situations like this, Armstrong emphasized the importance of everyone on the staff.  “This is why you pay your amateur staff, because now you’re switching spots and you’re having to draft higher, and they’ve been looking, coming down the stretch, they’ve been kind of seeing where we’re going to place and chasing those type of players.  Now it’s in motion, we’re going to switch and go into a new world of looking at the top end of the draft and seeing what’s going to slide our way at four.  The good news for us is that we’ve done it before.  We’ve picked in that range in the last few years, so that’s gonna help us prepare for it.  And I think the simple fact that our staff’s pretty good at always keeping an eye on what’s up there, and has done some great work during the year, and now we’re gonna go dissect it and get down to business tomorrow.”

Speaking of previous drafts, Armstrong said, “Normally you sit in these things and sometimes nobody moves and you go home unhappy or you got bumped down a spot and you go home unhappy, but we’ll never forget this moment. This is truly a great moment in the franchise.”

When asked about the depth of this year’s draft, Armstrong responded, “It’s a good draft. I think when you’re picking up top you get a chance to get a real game changer, a top-two line guy that can be a difference maker on your team.  You still have to pick well.  If you go back to the 2012 draft, take a look at the top four that went off the board, and they all never worked out for them in the NHL, so you still gotta be a savvy staff that gets down to business and ignores all the critics, all the hype, and who’s supposed to go, and this and that, and really get down to it.  I think our staff’s done an amazing job over the years of just kind of ignoring all the noise and getting down to hockey players.  And you probably saw that the year that Cooley was picked.  There was a lot of hype about a lot of different players and we just stuck to our guns and drafted what we thought was the best player in the draft.”

For those who were wondering, the top four in 2012 were Nail Yakupov (Edmonton), Ryan Murray (Columbus), Alex Galchenyuk (Montreal), and Griffin Reinhart (NY Islanders).  Yakupov would play 350 games with 3 teams over 6 seasons in the NHL (62 G, 74 A,-136 Pts) before moving on to the KHL for the rest of his career.  Murray played 10 years in the NHL, registering 445 games with 4 teams (15 G, 116 A, 131 Pts).  Galchenyuk played 11 seasons in the NHL with 654 games (146 G, 208 A, 354 Pts).  Lastly, Reinhart would play just 37 games in parts of four seasons in the NHL (0 G, 2 A, 2 Pts).

When asked his draft strategy, whether Utah is looking for a particular type of player to fill a specific need, or if they will pick the best available player, Armstrong replied, “We really look at the best player available.  We’ve always done that as a staff.  Like I said, we kind of ignore all the hype and the noise around it, and all the bloggers and all the great things that they write about players – ‘and don’t draft this guy’ –  and our staff’s really good about just digging into hockey players. … It really comes down for the best player for us.  We always keep track of how many D-men we’ve drafted every year, and obviously as you get down into the later rounds, but when we’re picking up top we’re going to take the best player.”

When asked if he expects his phone to be ringing with teams making offers for the pick, and whether he would entertain such offers, Armstrong responded, “I think that’s something that obviously we’ll always talk about.  We’ll never shut that door.  That’s always been an avenue for us to get players, and we’re at the position right now as a team where we’re trying to make that next step, so we’ll always look at that.  That’s part of the process.  The amateur guys will be looking at the guy to pick – they don’t want to hear anything about trades!  But yes, the phone will be ringing.”

The final media question had to do with how the team might involve the community on draft day.  “Because we’ll be picking so high, it’ll cause a little bit excitement in the community and into our fan base,” Armstrong said.  “I think they’ll be really excited.  They’ll get into it.  They just have to remember that it’s not like basketball – the guy doesn’t play right away.  So I think that’s the big difference we’ve tried to explain to people.  It’s like, ‘They go back to Junior and sometimes they’re three and even more years away from playing, so it takes a little bit longer,’ but I think last year when we drafted a lot of the people thought, ‘hey, they’re coming in right away to play,’ and I’m like, ‘no, it takes some time.’  But truly an incredible day for us here and we’re gonna to have the opportunity to pick a real good player high in the draft and take a big swing here.  It’s gonna be exciting.”

Now the big question is whether the June 27 draft pick will be wearing a sweater featuring a Mammoth, an Outlaw, or something else.

Tom Walker is a Utah Hockey Club beat writer at http://www.sportsradioservice.com