Is Utah becoming a destination for NHL players? Nick Schmaltz’s contract extension suggests that it is

· Yahoo Sports

Nick Schmaltz and Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong field questions at a press conference at the Utah Mammoth Ice Center in Sandy, Utah, on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. | Hunter Dyke

If you’re a real estate agent in the Salt Lake area, you might want to get to know Nick Schmaltz and his fiancée, Abby. They just came into a large sum of money and they’re looking to plant their roots in Utah.

Schmaltz, a star forward with the Utah Mammoth, just signed an eight-year contract extension worth $64 million.

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“My fiancée and I love it here, so we’re super excited to get settled down and hope we can find some real estate here,” he said at a press conference on Wednesday following the announcement of his extension.

But it was far from an easy deal to get done. GM Bill Armstrong admitted that the thought of losing Nick “left me sleepless, night after night after night, thinking about what he was going to get in free agency.”

After one of Schmaltz’s hat tricks at the Delta Center this season (he’s had two already), Armstrong scanned the crowd, taking it all in, when he caught the gaze of a woman in the audience, who seemed to be looking directly at him.

It was the soon-to-be-Mrs. Schmaltz.

He looked away, questioning what he saw, but a second look confirmed it.

“I look back down and she’s glaring right at me. She’s locked right in. She’s like, ‘Yeah!’” Armstrong explained with a smile on his face and laughter coursing through the conference room.

It’s safe to say both the Armstrong and Schmaltz households will sleep easier from now on.

Why did Nick Schmaltz want to stay in Utah?

Going through a rebuild isn’t easy on anyone. Armstrong mentioned that in the Arizona days, they had plenty of people bail on them.

Schmaltz got to the Coyotes at age 22 after being traded from the Blackhawks. The Coyotes had finished third-last in the entire league the previous season, while the Blackhawks had won the Stanley Cup three of the past nine years.

A trade like that can be discouraging for a young player, but the idea was that if he stuck around, he’d be able to help the team rise to success. They’ve since moved cities, changed names and technically created a new franchise, but the group is largely the same — and now is the time that they start to see the results of all their hard work.

“When you go through a rebuild, as we did, you really understand the character of a person,” Armstrong explained. “We had a lot of people bail on us. We had a lot of people not play well, not hard, didn’t want any part of it. Nick was actually the opposite. He bought into it, he embraced it and he drove through it.”

Schmaltz described himself as a “pretty loyal guy.”

“I committed to Arizona for seven years, and obviously it was some tough times there, but I don’t know. I just liked the group we had, I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I knew at some point it had to turn around, and I wanted to see it through and be a part of the rebuild and kind of build it from the ground up.

“... I’m super happy that I did that and I think it means a lot to grind through those years, because then it makes the good times that much better.”

Hats fly as Utah Mammoth center Nick Schmaltz (8) celebrates his hat trick during the third period of an NHL game against the Vancouver Canucks at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. | Rio Giancarlo, Deseret News

Is Utah becoming a destination for NHL players?

A major part of the free agency discussion in recent years is whether a given team is considered a “destination.”

For example, the Vegas Golden Knights have created a place where players want to be. The weather is nice during the season, there’s no state tax, the fans are passionate and the team wins. The Dallas Stars, Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning, among others, have become destinations for similar reasons.

Utah doesn’t have palm trees and there is state tax (although it’s much lower than many other NHL markets). So what would make a player want to play there?

Ownership can make a huge difference — and that’s something Schmaltz mentioned in his opening statement on Wednesday.

“Ryan and Ashley, they’ve given us every single tool to get better every single day,” he said. “They built this amazing practice facility, they’ve done stuff at the Delta Center, renovations to make the building better. It just seems like they’re all-in on us. They do whatever it takes to win and they make our job easy, just to go out and perform.”

Schmaltz is one of several players to sign long-term deals in Utah, but he’s the first to do so as an unrestricted free agent. Had he waited four more months, he could have chosen any city in the league as his new home — and as the biggest free agent on the market, there’s a good chance he would have gotten even more money.

But if Utah truly is a destination for NHL players, staying becomes an easy decision.

“I think people are starting to see, ‘Utah’s actually a place I want to live,’” said Mammoth owner Ryan Smith. “... You leave this facility, you’ve got that beautiful mountain range right in the back. You can get anywhere around here. You can fly anywhere. Utah’s pretty special and I think everyone is starting to see that.”

Ryan Smith, André Tourigny, Nick Schmaltz, Chris Armstrong and Bill Armstrong pose for a photo at the Utah Mammoth Ice Center in Sandy, Utah, on Wednesday, March 11, 2026. Hunter Dyke/Utah Mammoth | Hunter Dyke

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