Armstrong: Utah 'in the best shape' of all NHL clubs
Utah general manager Bill Armstrong provided some clarity on his franchise's trajectory ahead of its first season in a new locale, emphasizing that progress is the name of the game rather than the playoffs.
"I think there are expectations, but I would say they're reasonable expectations," he told reporters Wednesday, per KUTV 2 News Salt Lake City. "It's a very young group, we're in the fourth year of the rebuild. Just off statistics, most teams don't overachieve in the fourth year. There's still a young process that our guys have to go through and learn a little bit of the experience."
Even if he isn't in a hurry to pencil the club into a playoff spot, Armstrong said Utah will be "an exciting team" in 2024-25.
"I'm a little biased about the way it's built, but I would say that, out of all the 32 teams, we might be in the best shape as an organization," he said. "We don't really have any bad contracts, we've got cap room to add, we've got a boatload of picks, and we've got a boatload of prospects that are knocking on the door to become NHL players."
Armstrong added: "They're all bought-in on the process. ... It's just gonna take some time over the years to get that talent out to its full potential."
Before shipping out to Salt Lake City, the Arizona Coyotes hadn't made the playoffs for four straight seasons. They were a distant 21 points out of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference in 2023-24, but Armstrong's squad projects to be more competitive during Year 1 in Utah.
The executive overhauled his club's defense this summer, bringing in Robert Bortuzzo, Ian Cole, John Marino, and Mikhail Sergachev, who will certainly make life easier for goaltenders Karel Vejmelka and Connor Ingram.
Thanks in part to those moves, Armstrong declared that Utah is past the point of prioritizing acquiring draft picks in exchange for bad contracts to aid the rebuild.
"We're interested in building upon what we have and moving forward with what we can do," he said. "We went through that time. I think there's a psychological part, to be honest, with being a player and seeing your team kind of taken apart. Our guys have been through that before."
Utah will kick off its preseason slate on Sunday against the St. Louis Blues, while its regular-season home opener is scheduled for Oct. 8 versus the Chicago Blackhawks.