Armstrong & Staff Ready for NHL Draft, ‘Special Time for us in Utah’
Experienced scouting staff owns 13 picks for first-ever Utah draft class
New location, same All-Star scouting staff.
The Utah Hockey Club heads into the 2024 NHL Draft in Las Vegas with the sixth overall pick on Friday, and 12 more on Saturday, which includes three each in both the second and third rounds. Once the dust settles, the club will have made 13 total selections in Vegas (barring any trades), amounting to a whopping 35 total picks over the last three years.
Busy weekend? Sure, but that’s nothing new for General Manager Bill Armstrong and his distinguished scouting staff.
“It’s the best,” Armstrong said. “It’s like jumping out of a plane 500 times.”
Perhaps most promising, many of those prior selections have already turned into NHL-experienced players whose growth is critical to Utah’s development, including Dylan Guenther (9th overall, 2021), Josh Doan (37th overall, 2021), J.J. Moser (60th overall, 2021), and Logan Cooley (3rd overall, 2022).
As far as Armstrong is concerned, though, there’s no dwelling on the team’s past success stories. Rather, his scouting team is squarely focused on adding to the team’s cupboard of prospects that’s already bursting with talent.
“When you’re in the scouting business you look back and have a smile because we got this guy, or we got that guy, but then you move on to your list, because it’s, ‘What have you done for me lately?’” Armstrong said. “It’s a boatload of picks, and for our staff it’s an exciting time.”
Friday also marks the organization’s first draft as the newly-minted Utah Hockey Club, a team the entire state has embraced with high levels of anticipation and enthusiasm.
“This is a special time for us in Utah just because of the excitement surrounding the first-ever NHL team,” Armstrong said. “People are just ecstatic to have us there. It’s really just added into the frenzy. It’s normally a frenzy at the NHL Draft, but now the excitement of Utah, and what we’re launching, it’s an exciting time for us.”
Utah Hockey Club fans have plenty of reason for optimism considering the experience and success of the club’s scouting team, and Armstrong is always quick to deflect credit for the organization’s steady progress to his All-Star staff. That team has included Director of Amateur Scouting, Darryl Plandowski, Associate Director of Amateur Scouting, Ryan Jankowski, Assistant General Manager, David Ludwig, Assistant General Manager, John Ferguson, and Senior Advisor, Larry Pleau, in addition to the litany of experienced scouts positioned throughout the globe.
Years of Experience and Success
A quick look at the staff’s collective resumé almost requires a double take.
Armstrong is no stranger to success in the draft. He worked his way up in the St. Louis Blues system, starting as an amateur scout in 2004-05 before wrapping up his tenure as Director of Amateur Scouting and Assistant General Manager in 2019-20, where he helped the Blues capture their first-ever Stanley Cup. When he took the helm as GM of the then-Coyotes shortly thereafter, he got to work building one of the most experienced amateur scouting teams in the NHL.
Plandowski was instrumental in building the juggernaut Tampa Bay Lightning teams that won back-to-back titles in 2020 and 2021, spending 12 seasons with the organization as Head Amateur Scout and Assistant Director of Amateur Scouting. In all, he has 26 years of NHL scouting experience with the Lightning, Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Arizona Coyotes.
“Everyone with the team is excited because it’s a new beginning,” he said of ushering in Utah’s first NHL Draft class. “We really want to do well for the city and state because we feel that we have some prospects that they’ll grow to love and follow. The boys that we draft this weekend, the fans will start to follow, and it’s important they get to know these guys.”
Jankowski adds to that already-stacked staff with experience as Assistant General Manager with the New York Islanders, a scout with both the Islanders and Montreal Canadiens, Director of Amateur Scouting with the Buffalo Sabres, and Associate Director of Amateur Scouting with the Arizona Coyotes.
The veteran staffer also had a hand in building some of the most talented teams in international play, having acted as Head Scout, Director of Player Personnel, and Director of Hockey Operations for Team Canada at the U16, U18, and U20 levels.
Jankowski said the multitude of selections in the upcoming draft gives Utah a luxury so many other teams crave at this time of year: Options.
“Bill has spoiled us over the last few years with picks,” he said. “It gives us the exact same excitement we’ve had the last few years, and the meaningful task of continuing to stock the cupboards. It’s exciting to have that many picks, it’s just a matter of executing and getting everything ready to go so we can draft good players.
“All of that comes back to having a volume of picks. You can do so much more because you have a lot of picks. You have the flexibility to do some things with those picks because you have that volume.”
Ludwig was promoted to Assistant General Manager last season after acting as the team’s Director of Hockey Operations and Salary Cap Compliance, and said the scouting team’s experience continues to strengthen the Utah Hockey Club’s long-term outlook with every passing season.
“It’s an All-Star Team, and we have all the faith in the world in them that no matter how the draft shakes out we’re in a good spot,” he said. “Our scouts have put in countless hours, miles, and rental cars to make it happen. We’ve got 13 picks going into the draft, we’ve made some deals to get them, and it’s because of the faith and the trust we have in our scouts that we want them to have the opportunity.
“This is their time to shine, and we have every faith that they will.”
Unique Perspectives, Collective Approach
The diverse backgrounds of the scouting staff often leads to different opinions when creating the team’s draft board, but Plandowski said each individual perspective allows the team to discuss variables with a level of trust that encourages everyone to speak up.
It’s a necessary step to make such enormous decisions leading up to the draft, and collectively it has paid dividends to this point.
The Utah Hockey Club’s rebuild has steadily progressed not just because of the prospects who have already spent time in the NHL, but also because of players who have yet to make their debut in the league, such as F Sam Lipkin (223rd overall, 2021), F Conor Geekie (11th overall, 2022), D Maveric Lamoureux (29th overall, 2022), F Julian Lutz (43rd overall, 2022), D Dmitry Simashev (6th overall, 2023), F Daniil But (12th overall, 2023), G Michael Hrabal (38th overall, 2023), and F Jonathan Castagna (70th overall, 2023), among others.
The logic used to select those draft classes will be the same as what Utah fans will witness this weekend; while some teams (and pundits) focus on a specific position, the Utah Hockey Club will continue to look to the best available player in the draft.
“We don’t feel any type of urgency to stock shelves in a certain area,” Plandowski said. “It’s going to help when we take the best player.”
Unsurprisingly, Jankowski agreed.
“We want to maximize the talent, whether it’s a forward or defenseman, and just take the best available,” he said. “When the draft goes on you try to make sure it’s well balanced, but certainly to start on the first day you need to get the best player on the board.”
That mantra has helped a multitude of recent Stanley Cup winners reach the promised land, and it’s the decisions made years before that success that are ultimately the difference in overcoming adversity en route to a championship.
That’s especially true when everything is on the line, as it was in Monday’s thrilling Game 7 between the Florida Panthers and Edmonton Oilers.
“It’s a Bill Armstrong quote: Game 7 is won on draft day by the decisions you make and the players you draft,” Jankowski said. “That Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final is won in our draft room with the list that we create.”
The unpredictability of draft day — whether it’s surprise picks or sudden trades — can oftentimes threaten to throw a wrench into a particular team’s plans.
No matter: Armstrong and his staff have seen it all, and no surprises will throw them off of their ultimate goal of adding even more talent to an up-and-coming team without mortgaging the future.
“Be ready. Be prepared,” Armstrong said. “We’ve got a young team, and we’ve got a lot of ability to add through draft picks and through trades, you name it. We’ve got to explore every option to better our club and but not hurt ourselves for the future.”
Nice report! Was such a promising rebuild. Look forward to seeing the future players in Tucson for a couple more years at least.