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Utah takes step forward with acquisitions of defensemen Mikhail Sergachev, John marino
LAS VEGAS — Late in the 2023-24 season, then-Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong broached a topic that needed addressing. Heading into the offseason, Arizona had no NHL defensemen under contract and their top prospects were not NHL-ready.
“We know we have to rebuild the blue line,” Armstrong said. “That will be our top priority.”
In his first draft as GM of the Utah Hockey Club, that’s exactly what Armstrong did. One day after making two first-round selections (forward Tij Iginla and center Cole Beaudoin) at the 2024 NHL Draft at Sphere in Las Vegas, Armstrong acquired two top-four NHL defensemen.
Utah sent restricted free-agent defenseman JJ Moser, highly-regarded center prospect Conor Geekie, a 2025 second-pick and a 2024 seventh-round pick to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday in exchange for 26-year-old, left-handed defenseman Mikhail Sergachev.
Within minutes, the NHL also announced that Utah had added right-handed defenseman John Marino and the 153rd overall pick in the 2024 draft from New Jersey by sending the Devils the 49th overall pick and another 2025 second-round pick.
Somehow, Utah also made 11 selections at the draft.
“There’s not many times you go to a draft and pick two first-rounders, make two huge trades, and end up with an entire fleet of players,” Armstrong said. “It’s hard to suck and blow, but we kind of did.”
Sergachev (6-3, 211) suffered foot and leg injuries last season that limited him to 34 games (two goals, 19 points), but he pushed hard to return for the Lightning’s playoff series against the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers and Utah’s staff said he has fully recovered.
Sergachev was the ninth overall pick in 2016 (Montréal). The Canadiens traded him to Tampa for Jonathan Drouin one year later. He blossomed in Tampa, posting career-highs of 10 goals (tied) and 64 points in 2022-23. To put that in context, and even though the records do not belong to Utah, the franchise record for points by a defenseman in Arizona was 59 by Keith Yandle in 2010-11. Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s best season was 55 points.
Analysts have wondered for a couple seasons if Sergachev was ready to assume a No. 1 defenseman role, but he played understudy in Tampa while learning from perennial Norris Trophy candidate Victor Hedman and veteran Ryan McDonagh. With Utah, he could hold key roles on the power play and penalty kill, and he is capable of quarterbacking a power play.
Analysts rate his skill and puck-moving ability as exceptional and the Tampa coaching staff felt his defensive game grew by leaps and bounds during the Bolts’ Cup runs. With McDonagh back and Hedman re-signing, this trade felt like Tampa getting a start on its soon-to-come rebuild while playing out the string with some veterans.
“We wanted to cement a top-end D that could play a ton of minutes,” Armstrong said. “[He’s got a] good, thick body on him. He plays hard, block shots. He can play on the offense, the defense, and he’s won. He’s got a lot to bring into our culture.”
The other advantage Sergachev will bring is to act as a mentor for the key Russian prospects in the Utah pipeline: defensemen Dmitri Simashev, Artem Duda and forward Daniil But.
Marino just turned 27 in May. There were some concerns that he regressed last season, as did much of the Devils’ roster after a 112-point, 2022-23 season. But Marino was New Jersey’s go-to, shutdown defenseman in 2022-23 and Utah desperately needed that element on its blue line. Marino is an excellent skater who was deployed successfully against players such as Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid.
“Seasons of a player sometimes go up and down,” Armstrong said. “They’re young men. They’ve still got some learning and growing to do, but I think they could have great impact on our organization. They both can move a puck; can play huge minutes. They’re going to be good pieces for us to move forward with.”
Both the Sergachev and Marino acquisitions fit into Armstrong’s approach of acquiring players who can grow with the core, rather than getting players on the wrong side of 30 who will be a bigger hindrance than help when this young team is ready to become a consistent playoff team.
“That’s part of the plan is to get guys that have some age that matches some of the other group,” Armstrong said, noting the respective ages of Lawson Crouse, Clayton Keller, Sean Durzi and Connor Ingram. “It’s all around that same age group and they can move forward together.”
Moser was one of early success stories of the Armstrong era with director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski and associate director Ryan Jankowski. The then-21-year-old, 2021 second-round pick was expected to play that season with the Tucson Roadrunners. Due to injuries on the blue line, the Coyotes recalled him after just 18 games and he never left, showing a two-way poise that made him an instant favorite of the coaching staff.
Geekie was the Coyotes’ top center prospect in the system. He had 43 goals and 99 points in 55 game split between Wenatchee and Swift Current last season in the WHL. He was expected to play in Tucson this season with an outside chance of making the NHL roster. Geekie’s departure diminished Utah’s center depth considerably. After Logan Cooley, the team does not have any young centers with legitimate top-six potential, unless 2024 24th overall pick Cole Beaudoin blossoms.
“You’ve got to give a little bit to get something so I’m alright with that process,” Armstrong said. “We had an understanding that we needed a building block. Sergachev is a building block for us.”
UTAH FREE AGENCY REDUX
By making the moves that he made at Sphere, Armstrong alleviated some of the pressure and need to make a big move in free agency, particularly on the back end where there have been reports that he could pursue Florida free agent Brandon Montour. Armstrong joked that he’d like to put his phone down on Day 1 of free agency to avoid making the big-ticket mistakes that so many GMs make on that day of overpayment.
“We’re gonna explore everything we can to better our club like we do all the time; to fill some holes,” he said. “But I don’t think we have to go down that road. We will be patient with it. There’s always one or two that you don’t mind, but I think with what we’ve done now, it allows us to be patient and let it come to us.”
Utah further bolstered its blue line on Saturday by re-signing restricted free agent (RFA) defenseman Juuso Välimäki to a two-year contract with an average annual value (AAV) of $2 million. The signing comes shortly after the team re-signed RFA defenseman Michael Kesselring to a two-year deal with an AAV of $1.4 million.
The team is also in discussions with RFA defenseman Sean Durzi, whose expected signing would solidify their top five, barring further moves.
Draft Recap
After selecting forwards with both first-day picks, Utah balanced out its draft by deepening its defense pool. The team’s next four selections all came on defense, and they also took a fifth defenseman in the fitter round; Aleš Čech who played for Mlada Boleslav in the Czech Republic where former Coyotes forward Radim Vrbata was the sport director until the start of the 2022-23 season.
“We wanted to make sure we were balanced out,” Utah director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski said. “Our guys have done a real good job working hard and identifying guys. Even though we lost some picks, we were still really happy with the guys we got.”
Iginla was the headliner of the draft class and I will publish a feature on him early this week.
Top photo of Mikhail Sergachev via Getty Images
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