‘Anything can happen’: Behind the scenes of the Utah Mammoth’s NHL Draft preparation

Ryan Jankowski took a nap.

It was the opening day of the 2021 NHL Draft, and the then-Arizona Coyotes’ associate director of amateur scouting hit the pillow with a general idea of his team’s plan.

Arizona had to forfeit its first-round pick (11th overall) that year due to a violation of the NHL’s combine testing policy during the 2019-20 season, so Jankowski and his colleagues had focused on prospects projected to go later in the draft.

Then everything changed.

Jankowski woke up to find that general manager Bill Armstrong had made a trade that secured the Coyotes the ninth overall selection that day. Armstrong sent Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Conor Garland to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for the high pick and three other players.

What became of that ninth overall pick in 2021? Dylan Guenther.

“One thing we’ve learned since starting to work for Bill Armstrong is anything can happen,” Jankowski said.

It is experiences like that that have prepared the now Utah Mammoth staff to pick at No. 4 in the 2025 NHL Draft. Utah was expected to have the 14th overall slot, but won the second sequence of the draft lottery in May and jumped up 10 spots.

Once again, it was time to pivot.

Jankowski did not even watch the draft lottery this year, he said, because the Mammoth’s odds of moving up were so low — 1.5% to be exact. He was driving during the live broadcast of the fateful ping-pong ball machine selection.

“My phone started blowing up,” Jankowski said. “The first thing that came to my mind was, ‘Holy crap. Who are we picking at No. 4?’”

Darryl Plandowski — Utah’s director of amateur scouting — recalled a similar reaction. After having top-10 picks the last four years (between the Coyotes and Mammoth), Plandowski and his team thought their range had dropped a bit. Utah, after all, finished just seven spots out of playoff positioning.

“The Coyotes had never won — we never won anything,” Plandowski said. “We’d always gone backward one or two [picks]. To move forward, it was just unbelievable. Never in our wildest dreams did we ever think that would happen.”

The work had suddenly just begun for the Mammoth. While the scouting executives do a wide array of viewing and data collection on all draft prospects, they had more so focused on options for the No. 14 pick down the stretch. With luck now on its side, Plandowski said Utah had six to eight players it had to quickly explore, interview and meet.

“Literally the next day, we were obviously having calls with our own scouts and then we’ve all got friends in the business — you’re trying to pick their brains a little bit and just see what they’re thinking, what other teams are thinking,” Plandowski said.

It was a pleasant surprise for all. And one they felt ready for.

Before joining the Coyotes in 2020, Plandowski was with the Buffalo Sabres, Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning. He was Tampa’s head amateur scout when the Lightning drafted Victor Hedman second overall in 2009. That evidently worked out.

Jankowski also came to Arizona in 2020 after working for the Buffalo Sabres, Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders and the Canadian national teams. Jankowski was director of amateur scouting for the Sabres when they got Rasmus Dahlin first overall in 2018.

Since Plandowski and Jankowski have been at the helm of amateur scouting for the Coyotes — then turned Mammoth — they’ve had their fair share of first-round experience, too. Let’s take a look: picked sixth and 24th overall in 2024 (Tij Iginla and Cole Beaudoin); sixth and 12th overall in 2023 (Dmitri Simashev and Daniil But); third, 11th and 29th overall in 2022 (Logan Cooley, Conor Geekie and Maveric Lamoureux); and ninth overall in 2021 (Dylan Guenther).

The No. 4 selection is a bonus to the hefty resume they already have.

“It is a freebie. And that’s what we’ve said to our guys. We thought last year would be the last year that we would kind of have a high pick in the top 10. But that’s the nice thing this year — this is free. The team didn’t have to go through the pain of being a bottom-five team to acquire this pick,” Jankowski said. “With the high picks running out for us in our organization because of the steps we’ve taken, it is nice to have this. The best way to put it is it’s a freebie and we’ve got to take advantage of it.”

While many of the 2025 first-round prospects’ names have just started to circulate in headlines, the Mammoth staff has been tracking them for two years. It all starts when the players are in their 16-year-old seasons, Jankowski said. Jake Schmick (who is part of the scouting team) studies the underage players and makes a book on them that he turns over to Jankowski and Plandowski when the season begins. They go through the reports — on players from the first to seventh round — and start to narrow in.

It should not be forgotten that the Mammoth have a pick in the five rounds after the first this year as well.

“We have a great regional staff that have been at it a long time that do their work in their areas. What Darryl and I do is what we call a crossover. We kind of take all the different areas — we watch the world as a whole — and put the thoughts together on the players,” Jankowski said.

A key step in the process is the mid-season meetings in January. It took place in Salt Lake City this year and, after watching three Mammoth games in person, Jankowski and Plandowski set their tone for the second half of the season.

The end of January, February, March and the U18 World Championships in April is when they close in on which players will be top-10 on their board. That comes with a lot of travel to watch the athletes in person and talk with fellow scouts, coaches and front offices.

“The best way to put it is you’re three weeks on the road, one week at home,” Jankowski said. “Once the season ends in April, then we switch over to focusing in through video, through analytics. Less travel but more learning the background of the players, understanding what makes them tick, reading the psychological reports. All those types of details that put this whole complete book together on the players but especially the top players.”

Jankowski, Plandowski and Armstrong took those complete books to the NHL Scouting Combine in early June. The combine, which was in Buffalo, New York, featured 57 forwards, 27 defensemen and five goaltenders from North America and Europe, all of whom are draft-eligible. The players underwent physical and medical exams, interviews with organizations and fitness testing.

Armstrong said he is still looking at all avenues of how to use the No. 4 pick — including trading it or moving up or down in the draft. And so, the Mammoth took the week to get to know everyone. Going from No. 14 to No. 4 gave the team detailed reports on anyone available in both of those ranges; they interviewed about 50 people, Plandowski said.

Utah brought its strength and conditioning team to Buffalo, too, Jankowski said, to watch and study the players as they go through the exercises.

It was reported that the Mammoth dined with Michael Misa, James Hagens, Jake O’Brien, Brady Martin and Porter Martone in Buffalo. Armstrong also said that “anybody in that range” had extra time with the team. One could put Caleb Desnoyers and Anton Frondell in that mix.

“This whole thing was just a great exercise on getting to know all the players. In a way, it really sets us up to have anything happen. Bill can do anything and I think we are ready for all the scenarios he could throw at us,” Plandowski said. “Bill has scouted before. I know he knows how it works. I know he trusts us. I know he knows the process.”

Beyond the numbers and statistics, the combine helped the group see (or not see) the intangibles in the prospective picks: talent, competitiveness and character.

“They have to have talent — endless talent, we call that. Skating, we call it hockey sense, we call it puck skills. The NHL is so good and it is so talented now that if you don’t have this level of skill, it is hard for you to make it and stay there. That’s a starting point for us,” Jankowski said. “With that, it’s so hard that they have to have this competitive component. Work ethic, battle level, battle intensity. You might have skill but if you don’t have the work ethic to back that up, it’s hard.”

“The other thing we look at is character. They have to be driven. The NHL — and I would just say professional sports — is filled with ups and downs. There’s a lot of pressure from fans, from teammates, from organizations, from coaches. So they have to have this level of character to be able to push through that and have some perseverance when things get hard.”

The Mammoth will consider all these things when they make their fourth overall selection on June 27. Or, who knows, perhaps Armstrong will throw another curveball and Utah’s scope will change. Either way, the scouting staff is ready because of the work they put in leading up to the moment.

“When I first started — it’s been 25 years ago now — just the excitement and not being able to sleep because you were so excited for the draft. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve slept better. You mature,” Plandowski said. “The nice thing about me sleeping better is just the quality of staff we have. Whether it’s Ryan or all the guys — they’ve done such a good job and they work so hard that we go into the draft as prepared as anybody in the whole league. I know we are because I know some of the other staffs. Going in. I feel really relaxed, really calm.”

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