Bill Armstrong almost didn’t get his day with the Stanley Cup.
Back when Utah Hockey Club’s general manager was part of the St. Louis Blues championship in 2019, Armstrong got an unsettling call from the NHL.
“I saw my phone ring about 3 o’clock the day before I was supposed to get it. We were having a big party at the house and the NHL called and said, “You’re not getting the Cup. We can’t find it. It’s somewhere in Russia,’” Armstrong recalled.
His response: “Well, you better find it … and I don’t care if you’ve got to give me the fake one from the Hall of Fame, I’m going to have my day with the Cup.”
In the end, the league delivered the real deal to the front office exec the next afternoon. The NHL felt so bad about the delay, in fact, that they granted Armstrong a second day with Lord Stanley’s Cup later that fall.
But that’s still not enough for Armstrong.
Now the general manager in Utah, he wants to bring a title to the Wasatch. How long will that take? How has Utah Hockey Club settled into its new home? And what’s the team’s next step?
Armstrong joined The Salt Lake Tribune’s “Inside the Club” podcast this week to answer those questions and more. Here is a portion of the interview edited for length and clarity.
His journey from a player to a coach to a scout and front office exec.
Q: Has this first season gone according to plan?
Armstrong: It’s pretty much exactly as planned. When I first took over in Arizona, we didn’t have any draft picks. The NHL had fined us for illegal things that had gone on before I had taken the job so we had no picks. And, you know, there I was being an evaluator with no ability to bring talent into the organization. Through COVID and through taking a bad contract, we were able to multiply that many times over to acquire a ton of picks. And by doing that, we brought talent into the organization. It’s nice to go into training camp now, where we have new talent coming in every single year, and you can see the fruits of the labor, you know, from the Logan Cooleys to the Dylan Guenthers to the Jack McBaines and even the Mikhail Sergachevs we’ve acquired through our draft picks. So it’s coming together. There are always some adjustments you have to make in your plan. But where we’re supposed to be at in the rebuild is exactly where we are right now.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Hockey Club Logan Cooley (92) and Utah Hockey Club Dylan Guenther (11) and Utah Hockey Club Alex Kerfoot (15) celebrate the 4th goal of the night near the end of the third period, in the inaugural game between the Utah Hockey Club and the Chicago Blackhawks, at the Delta Center, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024.
Q: What have you thought of Cooley and Guenther’s leaps this season?
A: It goes back to drafting the right player that you think you can have a chance to win a championship with. That’s the first part. And then as you get the players in, you have to raise them right. No different than you have to raise your children right. You have to raise your players right and teach them the values you want them to have, to get them to play the right way in our culture. I think our coach Andre Tourigny has done a tremendous job with the players. Dylan and Logan have fully responded. They play the game the right way, both sides of the puck, and they give everything they can. They’re always trying to constantly improve and when you see that them get better and better every single day — coming to the rink and playing the right way and leading this team the right way — you get chills. You get to the point where you can see it coming. Both of those guys have a huge impact on helping this franchise getting to the next level.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Hockey Club defenseman Mikhail Sergachev (98), in NHL action between the Utah Hockey Club and the San Jose Sharks, at the Delta Center, on Friday, Jan 10, 2025.
Q: What have the additions of veterans Sergachev, Ian Cole and Kevin Stenlund meant for your team?
A: One of the things that we tried to do in the summer was to get players that would relatively be in the same age group as some of our players and could kind of grow with them. One was Sergachev. He was a huge impact player for us. He plays a ton of minutes. He’s one of the top defensemen in the league. Every night, he’s our backbone. So for us to get a player like that is just huge. That also ties into Ian Cole and the Kevin Stenlunds, who maybe won’t be here for the long term, but there’s a short term plan, and they’re helping our organization grow because they’re Stanley Cup winners.
Q: Given the injuries to defenseman Sean Durzi and John Marino, have you been able to fully assess what this team can be?
A: It’s been a huge frustration for our club. There are always a few injuries we’ve, but we’ve had massive injuries. We haven’t used that as an excuse. We’re extremely competitive here. We just played the Stanley Cup champs last night and we’re not happy about losing. We were always pushing to become better. But there’s also a reality factor: We’re a young team. [The Panthers] are in their window to win. We’re not at this point, but we’re having great games with them. We all want to get over that hump and be the team to beat in the National Hockey League, be one of the top 10 best teams in the National Hockey League. It’s coming. We’re not that far off. It’s a few tweaks in here, and it’s a little bit of growth here, and we’re going to have the chance to compete with those teams long-term.
Q: How do you view the trade deadline?
A: I think there’ll be two trade deadlines for the NHL. One is Four Nations, where GMs will go to work, right? And then, obviously, in there’s another in March. So I think teams will be working to improve their clubs. I’m not sure where we sit. I think our players will really determine whether we’re buyers or sellers. At that moment, for us, we’re always going to try to improve our team long-term. If that’s something we can do at the deadline, we’ll jump in. But short-term rentals, not knowing whether we’re going to get in or out … We’ll see at the trade deadline where we sit.
Listen to the entire conversation with Armstrong on “Inside the Club.”
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