The Utah Mammoth want to win.

Taking the Stanley Cup runner-up Vegas Golden Knights to six games in the opening round of the playoffs might have shown them they’re closer than ever to doing it on the biggest stage.

General manager Bill Armstrong has always been wary of the temptation to “win the summer” with splashy player acquisitions and then “lose the winter” when the games get tough, but maybe he can do both.

If anything, the start of this offseason has shown that he’s certainly going to try.

The Mammoth followed up a busy draft night last month with two major moves on the opening day of NHL free agency Wednesday to begin the offseason in earnest: trading for New York Rangers star forward Vincent Trocheck and signing longtime New York Islanders captain Anders Lee.

Winning state of mind

Trocheck had been linked to the Mammoth going back to at least the February trade deadline, when New York decided to keep the two-time All-Star and 2026 Olympic gold medalist despite numerous rumors to the contrary.

Utah had to give up a lot to get the 32-year-old Pittsburgh native in the end, sending fan favorite defenseman Sean Durzi, blue-chip prospect Cole Beaudoin and a 2027 third-round pick back to the Rangers.

“We wanted to bring somebody in that wants to win,” Armstrong said of Trocheck. “He wants to take that next step. Utah is a place that he wanted to go because he felt that this organization was taking the next step.”

The arrival of Trocheck and Lee on the Wasatch Front prompted NHL insider Elliotte Friedman to refer to the Mammoth as a “major factor” now in the NHL landscape.

“It’s a positive thing about how we’re viewed in the NHL,” Armstrong said of the players’ choice. “And there’s a little momentum that we’ve been gaining each step of the way.”

Armstrong opened his comments on Wednesday by saying he felt the moves helped give the club “a little more identity” as they look to the future and, one day soon, hoisting the Stanley Cup.

Getting to the net

What exactly is that identity? Getting to the net.

To achieve that end, Armstrong has leaned toward bigger players, and Lee is among the biggest forwards in the NHL at a hulking 6-foot-3 and 231 pounds.

“He does a lot of the things that we need,” Armstrong said of Lee. “He goes to the net and he recovers pucks. His leadership as a teammate is just to get in there and stick up for each other and just play hard.”

Lee spent the entirety of his 13-year NHL career so far in New York and was reportedly close to signing with his home-state Minnesota Wild this week before being swayed toward Utah.

The Islanders have not won the Stanley Cup since 1983 and missed the playoffs in six of Lee’s seasons there, including the last two. Heading to Utah at the age of 35 is a sign he believes his best chance at finally lifting the Cup could be in Salt Lake City.

Add Lee to the 6-foot-4 Lawson Crouse and 6-foot-3 Kevin Stenlund — who Utah signed to a new one-year contract last Wednesday — and the Mammoth have more than a few “mammoth-sized” forwards, to say nothing of this year’s first-round draft pick Ethan Belchetz, who sits at 6-foot-5, 230 pounds.

Lee was signed to a three-year, $16.2 million contract — the eighth-highest value of 2026 free agency so far — while Trocheck has three years remaining on his seven-year, $39.375 million deal signed in 2022.

Others moving on

Armstrong called losing a top-four defenseman in Durzi “the tough part of the business,” and said it was “extremely hard” to move on from him and Beaudoin in the Trocheck trade.

Still, he feels that Utah’s young defensemen, namely the 6-foot-4 Dmitri Simashev and 6-foot-7 Maveric Lameroux, are ready to step up and fill the gap left by Durzi on the blue line.

President of Hockey Operations Chris Armstrong also announced the departures of forward Alexander Kerfoot, defenseman Ian Cole and goaltender Vitek Vanecek in free agency.

Restricted free agent forward Barrett Hayton received an offer sheet for one year and $4.775 million from the New Jersey Devils, giving the Mammoth until Wednesday, July 8, to match the offer or receive a second-round pick as compensation.