How goal-setting made the Mammoth a playoff team

When the then-Utah Hockey Club arrived in Salt Lake City, GM Bill Armstrong frequently used the phrase “meaningful hockey” to describe the team’s goal for Year 1.

He wanted to set a reasonable expectation without over-promising anything to the new fan base. If his squad could still be hanging around the playoff race in April, the season would be deemed a success, regardless of whether playoff hockey came to the Delta Center.

The expectation for Year 2 was a bit higher, as it should be. This time, the team needed to actually make the playoffs — and for the second season in a row, the group accomplished its goal.

That begs the obvious question: What is the Utah Mammoth’s goal for Year 3?

Logically, getting to the second round would be a sure indication of growth. While Armstrong would love to achieve that, it won’t be his measuring stick for success.

Instead, it’s about gaining more playoff experience — learning to win, as they say. That comes through a combination of winning and pain.

“There’s a fine line in our sport between winning or losing,” Armstrong said in his exit interview at the Mammoth Ice Center Tuesday afternoon. “And for our growth of our team, we have to suffer a little bit of pain to learn to walk that line a little bit better.

“If we can do that in the big moments moving forward with this group, we’re going to have a good chance to take a run as far as we can to the Stanley Cup, and that’s the goal of this organization.”

Like several of his veteran players, who had their exit interviews on Sunday, Armstrong pointed out how difficult it is to even make it to the playoffs.

The defending back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, for example, missed the postseason entirely this year. So did the top two teams of last year’s regular season.

It’s an 82-game grind (increasing to 84 games next season). Only 50% of the teams make it. If you set your sights too high, you might neglect the details that get you there in the first place.

MacKenzie Weegar, a veteran of 11 NHL seasons, stated multiple times in his exit interview that going forward, other teams will not underestimate the Mammoth, now that they’re a playoff team.

That’s all to say it won’t be easy.

“Our expectations are to get back in,” Armstrong said. “That’s the No. 1 goal.”

Armstrong recalled his time with the St. Louis Blues, where he spent 16 seasons in scouting and management roles. In his 15th year there, the team won the Stanley Cup.

“We got beat up every year by the Chicago Blackhawks that then went on to win and the LA Kings that then went on to win,” he said. “They were painful losses and we got tougher every single time.

“Without those teams, we would have never won a championship. So, I don’t necessarily think it’s in someone that we can acquire, I think it’s that pain that when we’re going through that situation again, we’re probably a little bit better going through it, from coaching to players. It’s a hard lesson to learn … but it is something that you have to go through.”

What does it take to accomplish goals in the NHL?

While Armstrong is in charge of setting goals, head coach André Tourigny is largely responsible for actualizing them.

At his exit interview on Tuesday, Tourigny shared a peek behind the curtain at how that process works.

The coaching staff and management broke the season into five chunks:

• Game 1 to American Thanksgiving;
• American Thanksgiving to Christmas;
• Christmas to the Olympic break;
• The Olympic break to the trade deadline;
• The trade deadline to the end of the season.

“We had objectives, which we hit all of them — sometimes a little bit tighter than we would have wished — but we hit all our objectives,” Tourigny said.

As a means to accomplish those objectives, they established some directives:

• Extend winning streaks;
• Don’t losing streaks to get to five games;
• Protect leads within games;
• Possess the puck more, while limiting opponents’ puck possession.

Here’s how they did in each of those areas.

Extending winning streaks: In 2024-25, Utah managed a four-game win streak and three three-game streaks. In 2025-26, they had a seven-gamer, two fives and a pair of threes.

Limiting losing streaks: Utah’s losing streaks improved year over year, with nothing longer than four games, compared to their two five-gamers in the inaugural season.

Protecting leads: In Year 1, Utah tended to get a lead, and then play the rest of the game like a penalty kill, rather than pressing to keep scoring. It very often led to blown leads and was probably the number-one reason the team missed the playoffs.

The Mammoth corrected that in Year 2, which is characterized by their record: Per NHL.com, they lost eight games in 2024-25 when leading after two periods, and just four in 2025-26.

Of course, their playoff run ended early due, in large part, to their inability to protect leads, so there’s still work to be done.

Possessing the puck more: The full set of data isn’t publicly available to grade puck possession time, but NHL Edge shows that the Mammoth spent a slightly higher percentage of their time in the offensive zone than they did last year.

Tourigny, Armstrong and their respective staffs will spend the summer evaluating the season. They’ll come back with a handful of additional goals to aid them in Year 3 as the quest for success continues.

As Weegar put it on Sunday, “There’s just no reason not for us to think that we can win the Cup.”