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10 Questions as the Utah Hockey Hockey Club opens training camp
The Utah Hockey Club will begin its first training camp in its new hometown on Thursday at Delta Center.
With a roster that is nearly set and the drama of relocation behind everyone, the team kicked off camp on Wednesday with a media day that was full of hope, hyperbole and not much substantive content.
“It’s exciting,” forward Clayton Keller said. “New franchise, new ownership that wants to win and has done everything that we’ve asked.”
There will be plenty of questions to answer once the regular season begins on Oct. 8, but with the team taking the ice this week, we identified 10 questions for our training camp preview.
Keep in mind that ALLCITY Network will have 10 more questions as Utah opens the regular season, so if you don’t see a question that you want answered, ask yourself if that question pertains more to the season than it does to training camp.
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1. Which Utah prospects have the opportunity to earn an NHL spot?
The only one with a legitimate shot of making the roster is forward Josh Doan, who exceeded the organization’s wildest expectations in his 11-game NHL cameo late last season by scoring five goals and totaling nine points. Just as important, Doan plays the game responsibly in all three zones, a reality that coaches can’t often count on from young prospects early in their NHL careers.
With all of that said, Utah faces a conundrum with Doan. The top nine forward spots on this roster are all but locked down with Keller, Barrett Hayton, Nick Schmaltz, Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, Alex Kerfoot, Lawson Crouse, Nick Bjugstad and Matias Maccelli.
Even if Doan is ready to push for a bottom-six role, does management really want him playing limited minutes in a fourth-line role when he could play bigger minutes in all situations and still develop in Tucson? Coach André Tourigny believes Doan could fill a fourth-line role in the NHL because of how he plays the game, and that may eventually be his NHL role, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need more time to develop for that role.
“It’s a great question,” GM Bill Armstrong said. “Right now, we’re in tryouts so the guys are going to come in to battle and we’re going to see where everybody is and then we’ll go from there. Josh has a great opportunity to come in and earn a spot on the team, but if he’s not ready, like all of our prospects, we’re not hesitant to send those guys down to the minors.
“You weigh the development angle with every prospect, not just him, but we don’t know what’s going to happen in camp so we’ll see how it plays out.”
As for the other young prospects, look for players such as Maveric Lamoureux, Maksymilian Szuber and Ben McCartney to earn call-ups at some point this season, assuming they are healthy and progressing.
2. Where will the top prospects go after camp?
Utah has a lot of prospects in training camp this week, but there are many missing in action. Why? A variety of reasons. The KHL season has already started in Russia so prospects such as Dmitri Simashev, Daniil But and Vadim Moroz are otherwise occupied. In addition, NCAA players are not permitted to take part in training camp. This is another rule that many analysts believe should fall now that student-athletes are collecting big-time NIL money, thereby laying bare the sham of amateurism which the NCAA has always used to enforce such rules.
Anyway, here’s what to expect from the top guys after camp ends. For purposes of this list, we didn’t go beyond the third round, even though some guys will make waves from the fourth through seventh rounds. We’ll have a full breakdown on all the prospects after camp.
In camp
| Position/Player | Expected 2024-25 team (league) |
| F Tij Iginla | Kelowna Rockets (WHL) |
| F Cole Beaudoin | Barrie Colts (OHL) |
| F Noel Nordh | TBD |
| D Maveric Lamoureux | Tucson Roadrunners (AHL) |
| D Artem Duda | Tucson Roadrunners (AHL) |
| F Julian Lutz | Tucson Roadrunners (AHL) |
| F Miko Matikka | Tucson Roadrunners (AHL) |
| F Josh Doan | Tucson Roadrunners (AHL) or Utah Hockey Club (NHL) |
| F Ilya Fedotov | SKA or Sochi (KHL or VHL) |
| F Will Skahan | Boston College Eagles (NCAA) |
| D Tomas Lavoie | Cape Breton Eagles (QMJHL) |
| D Veeti Vaisanen | Medicine Hat Tigers (WHL) |
Not in camp
| Position/Player | Expected 2024-25 team (league) |
| D Dmitri Simashev | Yaroslavl Lokomotiv (KHL) |
| F Daniil But | Yaroslavl Lokomotiv (KHL) |
| G Michael Hrabal | UMass Minutemen (NCAA) |
| F Jonathan Castagna | Cornell Big Red (NCAA) |
| F Tanner Ludtke | Nebraska-Omaha Mavericks (NCAA) |
| F Vadim Moroz | Dinamo Minsk (KHL) |
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3. Do any of the PTOs have a realistic chance of making the roster?
PTOs rarely make NHL rosters. Often, these tryouts are favors between old colleagues in the NHL world or the agent world. The camp time also allows PTOs to show off their wares in case another team is looking for help.
As a first-round pick with offensive abilities, Yamamoto may have a chance.
“He wouldn’t have taken this opportunity if he didn’t think there was an opportunity,” Armstrong said. “We’ve asked him to come in, play like a little water bug, go to work and let’s see if he can earn a spot.”
Other than that, don’t expect any of these guys on the opening-night NHL roster. That said, as many as six of these players could end up playing in Tucson this season, depending on their performance in camp.
Forwards on PTOs
Hunter Drew
Cameron Hebig
Ryan McGregor
Austin Poganski
Kailer Yamamoto
Defensemen on PTOs
Peter DiLiberatore
Lleyton Moore
Robbie Russo
Goaltender on PTO
Dylan Wells
4. Which defense pairs will André Tourigny and Mario Duhamel choose?
Tourigny confirmed that the pairs below are the pairs the staff has decided to use out of the gate. However, defense pairs change often over the course of a season due to injuries, performance, matchups and other variables.
What this current grouping does is give the team the coveted lefty-righty split on each pair — a combination that makes it easier to retrieve pucks in the defensive zone and play them up the walls, and also makes it easier to send and receive passes along the offensive blue line.
Mikhail Sergachev, John Marino
Ian Cole, Sean Durzi
Juuso Välimäki, Michael Kesselring
Robert Bortuzzo
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5. Can Mikhail Sergachev seize the No. 1 D-man role?
As I wrote two weeks ago, at the core of the trade for Mikhail Sergachev was the belief that he was ready to assume the demanding and critical role of a No. 1 defenseman. His ability to do so will define his career. It will also define GM Bill Armstrong’s tenure as he moves out of the draft-capital-acquisition phase of the rebuild and into the trying-to-win phase.
This is the GM’s biggest trade acquisition by far, and it will play a major role in determining the ceiling for a Utah club stacked with young defensemen and talented blue line prospects.
“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.”
Analysts were all over the map in their assessment of the move at the draft. Some felt the Coyotes overpaid by surrendering top-four defenseman JJ Moser and top center prospect Conor Geekie. Some feel Sergachev is more suited to a No. 2/3 role. One reporter suggested to me that Moser is better than Sergachev. That sounded like a bit of a reach to others who believe Sergachev is ready for this role.
Coyotes director of pro scouting Alan Hepple saw Sergachev the most before the trade. Hepple has watched Sergachev all the way back to his junior days. Although director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski was not involved in this trade, he was Tampa’s top scout and he scouted Sergachev often while he was in juniors.
“He was a bull when he was playing in Windsor,” Plandowski said. “He was talented so it’s exciting. When you’re sitting in Tampa, you’re playing behind Hedman and for years, McDonough, so he just settled back into a role where he would not be the guy, but he’s got the ability to be the guy. There could be another step with this guy’s progression, just as far as him leading us on the back end to be really good.”
Sergachev may need time to adjust to new personnel, a new city and new systems, but it should be noted that Tourigny’s quick, aggressive defensive system is very similar to the one that Jon Cooper’s staff ran for years in Tampa before modifying it recently to protect the net front more.
6. What tweaks has Tourigny made to the systems?
Every summer, Tourigny and his staff do a deep dive on the systems and processes that the team employed the season before. Over the course of the season, Tourigny amasses pages upon pages of notes and then he puts all of those into action during the summer.
The notes are not just about what made his team effective or ineffective. The staff compiles notes on every team in the NHL.
“If you just look at your team I think you’re missing on something,”Tourigny said. “We all know in hockey, you steal from everybody. There’s no secret. That’s the way you grow. That’s the way you get better.”
So what tweaks might we see this season? Tourigny suggested the team will be more aggressive on the forecheck, more aggressive on the neutral zone forecheck and there will be some simplifications in the defensive zone coverage.
“You will see it soon enough,” he said.
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7. Which guys have most to prove?
Aside from Doan, we’re putting Jack McBain, Michael Carcone and Karel Vejmelka in that boat.
McBain had a promising cameo after the Coyotes acquired the Boston College product late in the 2021-22 season from the Minnesota Wild in exchange for a 2022 second-round pick. He displayed physicality and an offensive upside that rocketed him past the team’s other late-season college acquisition, center Nathan Smith, and earned him a spot on the NHL roster the following season.
With 12 goals and 26 points that season, McBain had some wondering if his ceiling was higher than projected, but he slipped in some of his details last season, although he equaled the previous season’s production in an injury-shortened 62-game season.
“We think that he can take a step,” Armstrong said. “He’s got to continue to grow. He’s got to continue to work on his faceoffs and be that all-round player that has a little bite, physically, and that can chip in with some of his offensive skill.”
Carcone is signed for one more year at the league minimum of $775,000. He started out on fire last season with 16 goals in his first 26 games. He finished with 21, but there were areas of his game away from the puck on which Tourigny kept harping, whether it was puck management or defensive zone play.
Kailer Yamamoto’s PTO is interesting in that regard. The 2017 first-round pick (Edmonton) is also a small player with offensive abilities. Could he push Carcone — maybe even seize his spot? Probably not. Tourigny suggested on Wednesday’s podcast that Carcone has already secured a roster spot but Yamamoto is intriguing.
Some league analysts think his greatest flaw is that he still sees himself as a top-six forward — that if he would just accept a bottom-six role he could play for 10 years. As one analyst noted, “the worst thing that ever happened to him is he played with Connor McDavid.”
Vejmelka is a lot like McBain in that he burst onto the scene and really impressed in his first season in North America.
Then along came Connor Ingram, the waiver wire pickup who emerged as one of the NHL’s best goaltenders last season, won the Bill Masterton Trophy, and probably should have been selected to the NHL All-Star Game.
Vejmelka is entering the final year of his contract. Utah really doesn’t have a prospect ready to replace him, but there is always free agency. He has work to do to earn his next deal.
8. Will Tourigny name a captain?
First, we want to provide Utah fans with some background on Tourigny’s philosophy about the captaincy. Watch this video to understand why Utah does not have a captain.
Will that change this season? We had the chance to ask Tourigny about it again when we had him on the All Utah Hockey show on Wednesday. It’s not his favorite topic, but he always provides detailed answers and he did again in the podcast posted near the top of this story.
“We’re talking,” Tourigny said. “We have guys. We think we have the right personnel. It’s just a matter of timing and keeping growing and having answers to all those situation questions. We have a fluid discussion.”
If you’re laying odds, there are only two choices on this team. There is Keller, widely viewed as the best player on the team and a four-time NHL All-Star. Tourigny calls him the fire on the bench; the driver of the bus who is in guys’ ears, pushing them to greater heights.
Crouse is the caretaker; a leader more in the mold of Coyotes great Shane Doan who makes sure that everybody is in a good headspace and has their needs taken care of, on or off the ice.
“We’re exploring different options right now,” Armstrong said. “You don’t want to give it to somebody and have to take it away, right? That’s where it can get ugly and go south quick. We just want to make sure we’re going through everything and we’re still working on that process. It might happen this year. It might not, but we’re exploring a few things.”
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9. Will this poor franchise ever play preseason games at home?
Over a three-season span that includes this season, this team will have played preseason games in 16 cities with just two of those games played in its hometown and one of those games played in its home arena. Here’s a look.
2022
Wichita, Kansas
Tucson, Arizona
Boise, Idaho
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Anaheim
Vancouver
Las Vegas
2023
Melbourne, Australia (twice as part of the NHL Global Series)
Wichita, Kansas
Cedar Park, Texas
Palm Springs, California
St. Louis
Las Vegas
Anaheim
Tucson, Arizona
2024
Des Moines, Iowa
Salt Lake City
Las Vegas
Denver
San José
Anaheim
Salt Lake City
The good news is that with the Delta Center renovations underway, the team won’t be wandering North America as much. Assistant GM David Ludwig, who handles the preseason scheduling, said the team will look to do home-and-home series moving forward.
10. What is the probable 23-man roster that emerges from camp?
Cooley, Guenther and Doan are the only players who are waivers exempt. Don’t count on Utah trying to send any of the guys who are not waivers exempt down to Tucson. They’ll be claimed off waivers by another team. This roster is almost completely set.
The Coyotes rarely carried 23 men on their roster the past few seasons. With Tucson so close, it made financial sense for a penny-pinching franchise to keep a player at his AHL pay level instead of his NHL pay scale, but it also made sense for that extra man to play games in the AHL rather than sit in the press box on game nights in Tempe. Tucson was so close to the NHL club that call-ups were as simple as hopping in the car and driving 90 minutes up the I-10.
It will be interesting to see how Utah GM Bill Armstrong proceeds now that neither of those factors exists. Here’s our guess for the opening-night roster of either 22 or 23 players, with the lines perhaps undergoing some tweaking.
Forwards
Keller Hayton Schmaltz
Crouse Bjugstad Maccelli
Kerfoot Cooley Guenther
McBain Stenlund Carcone
Extras: O’Brien, TBD (Yamamoto? Doan?)
Defense
Sergachev, Marino
Cole, Durzi
Välimäki, Kesselring
Bortuzzo
Goalies
Ingram
Vejmelka
Here is the full training camp roster of a whopping 64 players, six of whom Tourigny said are nursing minor injuries and will not be on the ice to start:
Top photo of NHL Draft in Las Vegas via Getty Images
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