SALT LAKE CITY — Scouts for the Utah Mammoth have been working hard over the last year, preparing for next week's NHL Draft. They've watched hundreds of hockey games in person around the world to find the right players to pick with the team's six selections in this year's draft.
"It's been a long process, as it is every year, but we feel we're in real good shape right now to finish this off next week," said Utah's Associate Director of Amateur Scouting Ryan Jankowski.
Luck was on the side of the Mammoth at the NHL Draft Lottery, when they moved up 10 spots to fourth in the first round. With the talent at the top of this draft, they feel like they'll get a great prospect with the fourth pick.
"This one's a good draft," said Utah's Director of Amateur Scouting Darryl Plandowski. "We think the top players are going to be really good. We also think it probably goes six deep. There's a couple at the top, and then it goes another four or five, and that's the group we're kind of looking at right now."
"Having the fortunate bounce of the lottery ball has made this even more interesting," said Jankowski. "We're zeroed in on a few guys. I'm not sure, because there's three picks before us, which one is going to be there for us, but we're definitely going to be ready."
This will be the fifth draft that Plandowski, Jankowski and General Manager Bill Armstrong have worked on together, building one of the top prospect pools in the NHL, and with the Mammoth trying to become a playoff contender, this is another big draft for this team.
"We are always trying to stack players, so it's actually important," said Plandowski. "We are pretty excited about our pool coming through. The hard part it they're still young, it's going to take a little bit of time. The more players we can stack in that can potentially beat out the players that are already in our stable, the better we are going to become."
The Mammoth are a young and talented team on the rise in a passionate new market, and the players in this year's draft have noticed.
"They see the fans," said Jankowski. "They see the excitement that our players had this year, and they see the success of the team, and how we are coming along and growing. A lot of those players want to be a part of it, which is exciting for us that you have that built in almost before you draft them."
"It's exciting times for the people in Utah," said Plandowski. "They're going to get behind this group of kids that we've already drafted, the kids that we're going to draft this year, and they'll start to follow their progress from the second we draft them and all the way until they're a National Hockey League player. As a fanbase it's exciting times."
