Some of the most successful teams in the NHL today have seen their respective general managers stick around organizations for the long haul. While the Utah Hockey Club has yet to see sustainable success under its top executive, it has nonetheless systematically improved play since its days as the Arizona Coyotes.
Having a good head coach always helps, but the general manager plays a bigger role than anyone in the organization in acquiring players for that coach. It’s also the secret to building a long-term career as an executive, and it’s why you see some like Doug Armstrong of the St. Louis Blues, for example, remain in the position for what is now going on two decades.
As for Utah, another Armstrong has taken over general manager duties, and that is Bill Armstrong, who learned a lot under Doug when he, too, was with St. Louis. Armstrong joined the Coyotes in 2020, and three years later, owner Alex Meruelo reaffirmed confidence in the general manager by keeping him around on a multi-year extension in September 2023.
Utah Hockey Club’s general manager is building a winner in Salt Lake City
With a head coach and general manager in Utah’s state capital for the long haul, or at least that’s the case on paper, current owner Ryan Smith should sit back and let these two do what they do best: Continually improve what was, during its days in Arizona, one of the NHL’s least competent and least relevant teams.
Should Andre Tourigny and Bill Armstrong continue to work well alongside one another, it won’t be long until Utah boasts a competitive on-ice product. It shouldn’t matter if that product came next season or even the year after, as NHL organizations take a while before they become competitive, especially when they are starting over. But better days are ahead for the former Arizona Coyotes.
Utah Hockey fans should consider themselves lucky to have an organization that, while the franchise before it wasn’t known for winning, they were at least building stability. And when the Coyotes players and assets moved to Salt Lake City, that stability relocated there too.