Believe it or not, the NHL season is more than halfway over, which means that Utah Hockey Club is more than halfway through its first season as a franchise.
The team has, at times, shocked the masses with incredible feats. At other points, it’s disappointed thousands of fans.
That’s consistent with what general manager Bill Armstrong predicted at the beginning of the season.
“Some nights, we look like we’re going to win the Stanley Cup, and other nights we’re going to be (not even close),” Armstrong said in an interview with the Deseret News in December, repeating a theme that he’d been highlighting for months.
This season is Armstrong’s fourth spent rebuilding this group, since he was with the team when it was still in Arizona. By his calculation, it’s rare for a team to make a strong playoff push this early in a rebuild. It takes time and patience.
But he does want to see progress — especially from the young players.
Expectations vs. reality
In an interview with the Deseret News last week, Utah Hockey Club captain Clayton Keller shared his thoughts on the team’s expectations and how they compare to reality.
“Our expectation was to come in and make the playoffs and grow as a team,” he said.
The playoff question is still unanswered, though a postseason berth seems to get further out of reach with every passing game.
But the team is growing in what Keller believes to be a positive way.
“We’re headed in the right direction, for sure,” he said. “We’ve had some good stretches, some not-so-good ones and ones where we’ve probably deserved better and there’s one or two mistakes that cost us a game. Those are things that you learn from and you take them on to the next game. When that situation does happen, you’ve been there before — you know what to do."
Although Utah has struggled to close out games recently, they haven’t lost by more than one goal (excluding empty-netters) since December — despite playing some of the NHL’s best teams.
“We haven’t had a ton of wins lately, but we’ve liked how we’ve been playing,” Keller said. “We’ve been right there with top teams, one shot away, losing by a goal.”
Player progress
This season has revealed more about the potential career trajectories of Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther and Michael Kesselring, three of Utah Hockey Club’s most promising players.
Cooley, the third-overall pick in the 2022 draft, has established himself as the best center on the team — despite the fact that he’s the youngest player.
He spent the first half of the season on a line with Guenther and Jack McBain, tallying nearly a point per game and playing a consistent defensive game.
“(I) feel more comfortable in the league now,” Cooley said on Monday. “Comfortable making plays that I might have not been last year. Overall, I think it’s been pretty good. Obviously, of course, there’s always stuff to get better (at).”
Cooley eligible to sign his next contract in July. With every game, he seems to deserve more and more money.
Guenther, who signed his big-money extension during training camp, has also solidified himself as a top talent. He led the NHL in goals at a few points early in the season.
Although he hasn’t quite maintained that pace, Guenther has been one of Utah’s most valuable offensive talents.
Guenther sustained a lower-body injury on Jan. 8. The team has struggled to score since he went out, proving just how valuable he’s been.
Kesselring took advantage of his extra ice time when injuries struck the right side of Utah’s blue line. He has shown that he can contribute on both sides of the puck, including special teams.
On the flip side, Utah has seen regression from Matias Maccelli.
He spent the past two seasons showing that he could be relied upon as an elite playmaker, but for whatever reason, that ability doesn’t seem to have followed him to Utah.
The effects of injuries
The injury bug has not been kind to Utah HC.
Before the season started, the team announced that forward Nick Bjugstad and defenseman John Marino would miss training camp with injuries.
Sean Durzi got hurt in the fourth game of the season; Maveric Lamoureux missed a chunk of time; Robert Bortuzzo has been on and off the injured reserve; Connor Ingram took a leave of absence when it became clear that his mother would pass away.
More recently, Guenther was placed on IR with a lower-body injury and Mikhail Sergachev was sidelined with an upper-body injury.
Of course, one man’s injury is another man’s opportunity.
As mentioned, Kesselring took advantage of the chance to prove himself as a legitimate top-four defenseman; Jaxson Stauber showed that he can play in the NHL; Olli Määttä earned a spot on Finland’s 4 Nations Face-Off team — a chance he may not have gotten if he’d stayed in Detroit.
It’s almost unheard of for an NHL team to have an entirely healthy roster, but it does make one wonder where the team would be with a few more healthy bodies.