The Utah Mammoth held an introductory press conference at the Utah Mammoth Ice Center in Sandy on Friday for Vincent Trocheck and Anders Lee, the two veteran forwards general manager Bill Armstrong added in the opening days of the offseason, as reported by the Deseret News. Trocheck arrived via the trade that sent Sean Durzi, Cole Beaudoin and a 2027 third-round pick to the New York Rangers; Lee signed a three-year, $16.2 million contract ($5.4 million average annual value) on July 1.
The pairing is a statement about where this franchise thinks it is. Trocheck, 32, gives Utah a legitimate second-line center behind Logan Cooley and a right-handed faceoff option the roster has lacked. Lee, 35, spent the last eight seasons as captain of the New York Islanders and brings the kind of net-front scoring and room presence expansion-era teams usually have to wait years to grow. “Our goals have always been the same: to compete for and ultimately win the Stanley Cup,” Armstrong said Friday, adding that with these two players the team is “one step closer to doing that.”
That is a different sentence than Utah GMs were saying two summers ago, when the franchise’s job was establishing itself in a new market. The young core — Cooley, Dylan Guenther, Barrett Hayton — got the team to the edge of relevance. Spending real trade capital and real dollars on two 30-plus forwards is what a front office does when it believes the window is opening now, not eventually. It also raises the internal bar: veterans of this profile are not brought in to watch a rebuild mature politely.
Both players are expected to slot into the top nine immediately when camp opens in September, and the roster as constructed suggests Armstrong may not be done adjusting the wings.
On the fantasy side, Trocheck is the add that matters: a 2C role with probable second power-play duty keeps him in the assists-plus-faceoffs mold that has made him a reliable mid-round pick, and the move costs him little. Lee is a better bet in banger and points-league formats than in dynasty, where his age caps the runway — but if he lands net-front on the top power play, his goal total will play.
