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Getting to know U-tah: Center Logan Cooley
From now through training camp, ALLCITY Network will publish profiles of players and staff on the Utah Hockey Club’s hockey operations side to help Utah fans get to know their new team before the first puck drop on Oct. 8 against the Chicago Blackhawks at Delta Center.
Logan Cooley
Position: Center
Height/weight: 5-11, 190
Shoots: Left
Age: 20
2023-24 stats: 82 games, 20 goals, 44 points
Career stats: 82 games, 20 goals, 44 points
Contract status: Signed through 2025-26 (AAV: $950,000)
Agent: Scott Bartlett
Dog: Cooper
The Coyotes never enjoyed luck in the draft lottery, but luck may have been on their side in the 2022 NHL Draft when they selected Logan Cooley third overall. FloHockey draft analyst Chris Peters said it at the time, but Cooley may end up being the best player from that draft.
In just one season, he already leads the 2022 draft class in points per game, and his entry onto the NHL stage came in electric fashion when he scored the goal shown above at the NHL Global Series in Melbourne, Australia in September.
The problem with that goal? It set expectations inordinately high for Cooley’s rookie season in which he finished fifth in Calder Trophy voting for NHL Rookie of the Year.
“It was preseason and I was just trying to make the play,” Cooley said this week. “Obviously, it turned out being a pretty nice goal, but it wasn’t something that made me think, ‘Oh, I wonder if people are going to expect this of me or think I’m going to be this or that.’ I know the player that I am and the player that I will be in this league. I think it’s just about slowly trying to find your game.”
After a hot start in which he had 12 goals and 17 points in the season’s first 24 games — including his first career hat trick against Nashville — Cooley hit a bit of a rookie wall. There was a point in the season when coach André Tourigny actually cut his minutes to try to help get him back on track, but the Coyotes staff never worried that it had rushed Cooley to the NHL too fast — even if that promotion past the AHL was a condition of Cooley leaving the University of Minnesota early. Tourigny always felt he belonged in the NHL. He was just experiencing the type of growing pains that any 19-year-old would endure.
“The league is a big learning curve, but by playing all that time, later in the season I really just started to kind of realize the player that I can be,” Cooley said. “I slowly started to find my game, and towards the end of the season, I thought I was thriving which kind of gave me something to build off going into this year.
“Slowly, you just start to kind of understand how the game works; just reading what other players do after you play a bunch of the guys throughout the league. Even watching video after each game and seeing plays that you might not have seen during the actual game helped me. You see how much space you could have if you had just made some adjustments.”
(Getty Images)
One of the elements that helped Cooley find his game was playing on a line with Dylan Guenther late in the season. The Coyotes recalled Guenther on Jan. 6 — a recall that was supposed to be temporary during Jason Zucker’s three-game suspension — but he never left and the two had fans dreaming about a long-term pairing of two key young cogs in the franchise’s future.
“We have speed, we have skill and I’m big on playmaking so when you’re playing with a guy that can shoot the puck and almost score from anywhere it makes it a lot easier,” Cooley said. “I was just finding ways to get him the puck in the right areas, in the slot, and then just using our speed.
“We had a lot of fun, too, when he came up. We kind of clicked off the ice, too, and just had fun coming to the rink together and trying to learn as much as possible from each other. If we do end up playing again with each other this season, I think it’s gonna go really well.”
While he is always working on his all-around skills, Cooley has focused on adding lean muscle mass and improving his shot this offseason. He said he is hovering between 190 and 195 pounds right now after playing at 185 last season.
“Something that I really wanted to work on this year was just getting the one-timer off and then being able to score from a little bit farther out,” he said. “It’s tough to always get to the inside in this league and be able to get a shot off right in front of the net so I think just continuing to work on my shot is big.”
Cooley has been training in his native Pittsburgh this summer. He has been skating with a number of NHL players including the Rangers’ Vincent Trocheck, the Ducks’ John Gibson, and the Canucks’ JT Miller, who has one of the best shots in the game.
He has taken a couple vacations to the family lake house in Maryland and to the Jersey shore, but he plans to arrive in Salt Lake City in late August or early September where he has already found a place to live.
“It’s kind of weird,” he said. “I had to start buying actual winter clothes this year, which kind of sucks, but I’m looking forward to getting started and it’s pretty cool how excited the city is about us.”
Related Cooley links
Logan Cooley wows Australian audience in Arizona Coyotes debut.
Logan Cooley’s brothers played a starring role in his rise.
Logan Cooley thriving on line with Dylan Guenther.
Top photo of Logan Cooley via Getty Images
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