There are still a lot of unknowns surrounding Utah’s NHL team.
Foremost among them, of course, is what name the team will eventually have. Will they be the Utah Yeti? Utah Mammoth? Utah Outlaws?
There is a long list of possibilities, though it has been narrowed down.
When it comes to how the team will approach the offseason, though, we do have some idea of the organization’s strategy — courtesy of TSN hockey insider Pierre LeBrun.
During a recent appearance on SportsCenter with Jay Onrait, LeBrun revealed Utah’s approach to the summer, as told to him by team general manager Bill Armstrong.
Utah has the most cap space of any NHL team at $40 million and some serious holes to fill, particularly on defense. It doesn’t have a single NHL defensemen signed currently.
With a young and promising core though, Utah isn’t going to go out and sign any long lasting deals.
Instead, LeBrun said, Utah is going to try and sign high-priced, short-term deals with key free agents, deals that will expire just as the team’s young core enters its prime.
“They (Utah) might be the busiest team in the NHL this summer,” LeBrun said. “They aren’t going to get carried away. They aren’t going to be drunken sailors with all that money. They are going to be aggressive. They have holes to fill. ... One of the things that Armstrong really stressed was that yes they are going to poke away on July 1 in free agency. They are going to use their cap space and maybe trade for guys from teams that need to create cap space. But they really want to stay respectful to the rebuild that they started three years ago. They are going into Year 4 of this rebuild and they have a young core, so if they dip into free agency, and they will, they want to go with short-term deals — one, two three years.”
LeBrun continued: “What they want to do is, if a player is offered X amount of money over three years from another team, they’ll offer to pay him the same total dollars over two years. Higher AAV (average annual value). That is going to be their hook. They are going to try and get guys on higher salaries, shorter term to fill out their roster.”
The nightmare scenario, LeBrun went on to say, is Utah getting stuck with long-term, big-money deals this summer that would limit the team’s ability to sign its own stars over the next few years.
After three straight losing seasons, the team doesn’t want to limit its ability to hang on to homegrown talent in the coming years.
“What they don’t want to do is wake up in four years and that young core is ready to go next level and they have to be paid and have all these lasting older free agent deals, veteran players that don’t fit the picture anymore,” LeBrun said. “They are going to be really careful and not lose their minds, despite having the most salary cap space in the NHL.”
LeBrun did note that he expects that the team will come to terms with defenseman Sean Durzi and that he and others will learn more about what else Utah might do this summer later this week at the NHL draft combine held in Buffalo, New York.
Given the promising talent on the roster, though, especially at forward, continuing the slow and steady rebuild of the last few years seems the most likely outcome for Utah, even as the team transitions to a new home bursting at the seams with money to spend.