Checking In on Utah HC at American Thanksgiving – The Hockey Writers Utah Hockey Club Latest News, Analysis & More

American Thanksgiving has been labeled as a checkpoint by many NHL fans as a time to judge if a team will make or miss the playoffs. Most teams that are in a playoff spot around this time will most likely make it in. With that said, let’s check in on the Utah Hockey Club and see what’s been going on during the franchise’s first 22 games in history.

Utah’s Season So Far

Utah started their season out with a bang by going on a three-game winning streak. Dylan Guenther actually led the whole league in goal scoring during this stretch with five goals. Utah started their win streak with a 5-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks which was the first NHL game in Salt Lake City.

From there, Utah quickly fell apart and have only won six of their past 19 games. While a handful of them have been close one-goal games, it’s been a downward spiral for the NHL’s newest team. Guenther still leads the teams in goals but has only scored five since Utah’s early winning streak. He is also tied with Clayton Keller for team lead in points with 20. Nick Schmaltz leads the team in assists with 17.

Related: Utah’s Maveric Lamoureux Thrives in First Month in the NHL

In net, it’s been an interesting story. Connor Ingram leads the team in wins with six. However, three of those wins came within the first three games of the season. Karel Vejmelka leads the two goaltenders in the other categories with a 2.25 goals-against average (GAA) and .922 save percentage (SV%.)

In their first 22 games, Utah has a 9-10-3 record and is seventh in the Central Division. They are four points back of the Vancouver Canucks for a wild card spot. Utah is five points back from the third spot in the Central Division, currently held by the Minnesota Wild.

Who’s Doing Well

When it comes to the question of who’s doing well, it’s been harder to say a multitude of players as the season grows older. However, there have been some standouts.

Vejmelka has to be the team MVP at this point in the season. Vejmelka has held an impressive .922 SV% despite having a 3-6-0 record throughout this season. The goaltender has taken the starting job from Ingram even before Ingram was injured before Utah’s most recent road trip.

Vejmelka’s 49-save performance against the Carolina Hurricanes has to be one of the biggest moments this season for the team. Despite getting outshot 50-21, Utah held on and beat the Hurricanes despite being shorthanded for most of the third period. It was Vejmelka’s play that kept them in the game, which has been the story of the season. The Czechian goaltender has kept Utah close in every game he’s started which has allowed Utah to win some games they shouldn’t have won.

Mikhail Sergachev has been another big reason why Utah has managed to stay around .500. The Russian defenseman was the biggest addition for Utah in the offseason and has lived up to what general manager Bill Armstrong wanted him to be: the team’s number-one defenseman. In 22 games, Sergachev has 15 points which is only four away from tying his totals from his 34-game season 2023-24. 

Two of Sergachev’s six goals are game winners, and he has been clutch in big moments. In their game against the Hurricanes, Sergachev played most of the third period when Utah was shorthanded for a majority of the final 20 minutes. Despite taking a shot off his head, he finished out the game to help his team get the win.

More recently, Sergachev scored the overtime winner against the Montreal Canadiens which gave Utah a .500 record on their most recent road trip and sent the team into Thanksgiving break on a high note. He’s arguably been Utah’s most important skater. It’s even more clear when you look at his average time on ice which is currently sitting at 25:43, good enough for third-most in the whole NHL.

While Utah has Guenther, Keller, and Logan Cooley, all of which most expected to be some of Utah’s best offensive players, no one expected Jack McBain to be second in goal-scoring. In the past five games, McBain has been on fire, scoring four goals.

In 22 games, McBain has 11 points. Eight of those points have been goals which puts him only behind Guenther. Ever since being placed back on a line with Cooley and Guenther, McBain has played really well and has been a pleasant surprise for a team that desperately needed offence.

Other good standouts for Utah so far have been Michael Kesselring, who has 11 points in 22 games and is second in scoring on the blue line; Nick Bjugstad, who since returning from injury has scored six points in 14 games; and the aforementioned Cooley and Guenther who have both been around where they were projected to be in terms of points.

Who’s Cold

Pick your poison. There have been plenty of players on Utah who haven’t been playing well this season. Three stand out.

Nick Schmaltz has been one of the biggest disappointments this season. After three straight 20-plus goal seasons with the Arizona Coyotes, Schmaltz hasn’t scored a single goal in 22 games. The Wisconsin native has 17 assists which does lead the team in that category but as the fourth highest-paid player on the team, it doesn’t cut it especially considering the only line that has been scoring for Utah has been the second line consisting of Cooley, Guenther, and McBain.

Schmaltz’s contract ends after next season which could mean Utah could try to flip him at the trade deadline. However, he’s an important part of the team having been with this core of players ever since the Coyotes traded for him in 2018-19. You can tell his teammates are rooting for him to end his scoring drought. If he can’t, it could end up being a bigger problem for Utah than it is right now.

After back-to-back 40-plus point seasons, Lawson Crouse has been a frustrating player to watch this season. In 22 games this season, the alternate captain only has four points. However, it’s been his play recently that has been very concerning. Crouse hasn’t scored a single point since Utah’s Oct. 24 game against the Colorado Avalanche. In the past 14 games, he’s had zero goals, zero assists, and a minus-3 rating.

It’s clear that Crouse has played some of his worst hockey in the past month. It gets even worse when you consider he is also one of the highest-paid players on the team. Something needs to give. He’s not a player that Utah should trade — the Ontario product is one of the most important figures in the locker room — and his slump is something he’ll need to figure out on his own as he continues his season.

Ingram started off the season playing decent hockey, winning his first three games. Then he proceeded to lose seven of his next 10 games, ultimately losing the starting goaltender job to Vejmelka. 

Ingram’s stats aren’t great at all. He has a .871 SV% and a 3.61 GAA. It’s disappointing, especially considering how strong his 2023-24 season with the Coyotes was. Perhaps it’s his injury that has been hampering his play. However, it’s unclear when Ingram got injured. It did keep him from traveling with the team on the east coast road trip and it is one that head coach André Tourigny will keep him out for the foreseeable future.

There have been a couple of other disappointments as well. Juuso Välimäki hasn’t been great defensively to the point where he’s been getting healthy scratched, Matias Maccelli only has nine points, and Michael Carcone doesn’t even have a goal this season after scoring 20 last season. All of this has been cumulated into Utah hovering around .500 and at times, looking very disappointing. 

What Has Gone Wrong

Utah has been a frustrating team to watch at points this season. While some of their problems have been addressed recently, others still remain.

The first issue is that Utah takes way too many penalties. In their 22 games, Utah has accumulated 104 penalty minutes, the second most in the league. Surprisingly, it’s been Maveric Lamoureux taking most of those penalties. Lamoureux currently leads the team in penalty minutes with 42. It makes sense since this is his first season in the NHL and he’s only 20 years old. However, it does need to change as Utah’s penalty kill success rate is at 77.4% which is the 10th worst in the league.

The second issue is scoring. During Utah’s recent slump, they’ve failed to really challenge their opponents offensively, relying on their defense and goaltending to bail them out. Utah is currently 21st in the league in average goals per game with 2.73.

This also reflects in Utah’s power-play numbers. They are tied with the Buffalo Sabres for 22nd place for power play success rate at 16.9%. While it’s been getting better recently, Utah needs to continue to improve to get their scoring up.

The third issue is one that Utah can’t control. Injuries have plagued this team. To begin the season, both John Marino and Nick Bjugstad were out. Fast forward to now and Marino still hasn’t played a game. While Bjugstad has come back, Sean Durzi got injured in one of the first games of the season and is out until later this season. This forced Armstrong to trade for Olli Määttä who has been decent in his 12 games with the team. Ingram got injured before the most recent road trip and now before their game against the Edmonton Oilers, news broke that Lamoureux is also injured.

What Does the Rest of Utah’s Season Hold?

Statistically, most teams that are outside the playoffs by Thanksgiving don’t make the playoffs. Of course, this isn’t always true. The most recent example is last season’s Edmonton Oilers who not just made the playoffs but went all the way to Game 7 seven of the Stanley Cup finals. 

Let’s get one thing straight, Utah isn’t the 2023-24 Oilers. However, while it will be an uphill battle to stay in the wild-card hunt, making the playoffs isn’t impossible. They currently aren’t in a horrible place but they’ll need to fix a lot of the errors that were mentioned above to compete with the best teams out west.

If Utah continues its current trend and hovers around .500, the trade deadline will be very similar to last year’s trade deadline. They’ll flip a couple of pending unrestricted free agents who are expendable. Alex Kerfoot, Bjugstad, Carcone, Cole, Määttä, Robert Bortuzzo, and Vejmelka are the seven NHLers on expiring deals. Out of the seven, Kerfoot and Carcone are most likely going to be the ones traded if Utah isn’t in the playoff picture come the deadline. If Durzi and Marino return around that time as well, Bortuzzo and Määttä could be candidates for the chopping block as well.

If Utah starts winning and is in the playoff hunt by deadline, there probably won’t be much that will happen. They’re still a rebuilding team and won’t want to sell off a lot of future pieces in order to win now. However, Armstrong could add a bottom six-piece to give the team a sense of belief that they have the momentum to be one of the 16 teams to compete for hockey’s most-coveted trophy: the Stanley Cup.

More than likely, Utah will continue their path as a team that is at or around .500. The injuries to Durzi and Marino really hurt them and a lot of the young players who are expected to be a part of the team’s future core are still growing. Armstrong has publicly come out and said he’s not expecting Utah to make the playoffs this season but rather just improve from last season. 

While Utah could make a playoff push, fans shouldn’t be angry if they don’t. They are already making strides in their development and are still looking like they will be a highly-competitive team in the future. For now, Utah is exactly where they should be as they continue to build their brand-new market and grow on the ice.