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Utah's free-agency moves prove it's still about the future; not the present
Utah Hockey Club GM Bill Armstrong took in the team’s first-ever development camp on Monday at Park City Ice Arena. By the time he had finished watching everybody skate, he was fired up.
“There’s some kids you haven’t seen in a full year, so for me as a GM, it was great to see all that talent gathered from everywhere,” Armstrong said. “It’s awesome to see what’s coming.”
The future was the focus on the first day of NHL free agency as well. While there was talk from many corners of the media that Utah would be a big player in free agency, Armstrong stayed true to the course he plotted four years ago. Instead of handing out massive deals like the one that 30-year-old defenseman Brandon Montour got from Seattle (seven years with an average annual value of $7.14 million), Armstrong acquired veteran depth on short-term deals.
For the second defense pair, he added 35-year-old, left-handed defenseman Ian Cole for one year at $3.1 million. He also signed 27-year-old, right-handed center Kevin Stenlund (6 feet 5) for two years ($2 million AAV). After having acquired Mikhail Sergachev and John Marino in trades, and after signing restricted free agent Sean Durzi to a four-year contract with an AAV of $6 million, there was no fit or logic to signing Montour, a guy who will be 37 when his nearly $50-million deal expires.
“Other than Cole’s age, we kind of stuck to the same framework of our team,” Armstrong said. “We got guys who fit the development stage of the team. It’s not so much about me selling this to people. It’s getting them to understand that it takes a while to be good. There’s pieces assembled, but it’s gonna take some time for them to be molded into a really experienced team
“And there’s pieces that are still going to come for us in the near future so we’re just pacing ourselves. We’re gonna get the right defense built and the right team built. That’s really important.”
Cole is a two-time Stanley Cup champion, having won in consecutive years (2016 and 2017) with Pittsburgh. Stenlund won the Cup this season with Florida. Armstrong said that pedigree was an important element to add to the mix.
“Cole plays a game smart and he demands excellence,” Armstrong said. “He wants to help this team grow. He’s going to be a huge piece to kill penalties, too.
“And with Stenlund up front, he’s really good on draws, really good on the PK and he gives you some length. One of the things we wanted to do is improve our game on the PK and I think we did that.”
Sean Durzi’s value
Sean Durzi has formed an opinion about the free agency process after experiencing it for the second time this summer.
“To be quite honest with you, I don’t love it,” the Utah defenseman said, laughing. “I don’t love the business side of the game. I love playing the game more than anything in the world. You forget that this is a business and you do have to go through this stuff. I’m lucky enough to have [agent] Allan Walsh and his team on my side and they kind of helped me a lot through this where I don’t really have to be too involved, but obviously I’m so happy it’s done now.”
Durzi earned himself a big payday on the strength of some impressive numbers last season; his first in a major NHL role. He had nine goals and 41 points — one of five right-handed defenseman 25 or younger to post more than 40 points. Despite a dip in play in the second half of the season, Durzi put up some impressive overall metrics.
Durzi played in an entirely different defensive system with the LA Kings, and he also played understudy on the power play to Drew Doughty before taking on a big role in Arizona under coach André Tourigny.
“The transition was a lot harder than I thought it would be,” Durzi said. “To move to a new team, to learn a completely new system than what I was playing, to have new D partners, all that was tough. And obviously, going down to Australia last year, our training camp was a little bit different than usual. It was a tough transition.
“Am I happy with the way things progressed? Absolutely. I think getting an understanding of how Bear and his staff wanted us to play kind of accelerated my game in different areas, whether it was taking pride in playing against top lines the whole season, or being a good teammate away from the puck and being a good teammate off the ice. What the staff taught me last year on how to be mature mentally and react to different situations was critical to my development as a player and as a leader.”
Durzi knows that with Sergachev aboard, there is a strong chance that he will not be on Utah’s top power-play unit. He hasn’t given it a second thought.
“My role is whatever Bear believes me to be,” he said. “Wherever they need me, I’m willing to go play there. I’ve played right, I’ve played left, I’ve played forward, I’ve been all around. It’s exciting to know that we have a good group who’s going to push each other. To have that internal competition only makes everybody that much better.”
Guessing Utah’s D pairs
With Durzi and Cole re-signed quickly on the heels of the Sergachev and Marino acquisitions — and the signings of RFAs Michael Kesselring and Juuso Välimäki — Utah has six NHL defenseman under contract.
The seventh slot will be up for grabs in camp. Among the possibilities are: Victor Söderström (an RFA), Vladislav Kolyachonok, former Coyote Kevin Connauton, who re-signed with the franchise on a two-way, two-year deal with a $775,000 AAV, and another free-agent depth signing that could come in the weeks and months ahead.
It’s way too early to engage in this sort of exercise, but here is our educated guess as to what the defense pairs will like when Utah opens training camp this fall. Things could change when the coaching staff has a chance to see how the pairs look and mesh.
The current mix of six players gives Utah the ideal left-right pairing that André Tourigny has said he prefers.
Projected pairs
Mikhail Sergachev — John Marino
Ian Cole — Sean Durzi
Juuso Välimäki — Michael Kesselring
Barrett Hayton/Artem Duda updates
Utah is continuing to negotiate with restricted free-agent center Barrett Hayton, the lone unsigned free agent on the NHL roster.
“We have big plans for Hayts,” Armstrong said. “I think he’s gonna give us a chance to anchor one of the top lines, which he’s done in the past. Obviously, he got injured last year and it was a setback for him, but he can come in now and he’s a year older, smarter, wiser and ready to attack. He always worked well with Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz so we’ll see where that ends up.”
Artem Duda, a 2022 second-round pick (No. 36), is at Utah development camp in Park City. His agent, Dan Milstein is trying to work out an agreement with Duda’s former club in Russia. League sources said the talks are progressing well and Duda could reach an agreement within the next couple of weeks.
Dmitri Simashev impresses
Word out of Utah’s camp was that 2023 first-round pick (No. 6 overall) Dmitri Simashev had a jaw-dropping first day of development camp. The team is excited about a lot of its young players, but Simashev wowed them. While there was some talk last season that he might stay in Russia another year beyond this one (his contract with Lokomotiv expires in 2025), don’t be surprised if Simashev comes to Utah next season and steps right into an NHL slot.
He has had to earn his way up the ladder with Yaroslavl Lokomotiv in the KHL so he understands how to, and is capable of playing in a depth role while he develops.
Jakob Chychrun revisited
Remember how GM Bill Armstrong got skewered for the return in his Jakob Chychrun trade?
That criticism didn’t age well.
Armstrong was under pressure to make a move while Chychrun was sitting out games late in the season for “trade-related reasons” (an Armstrong original). He was also unwilling to take money back, so he sent Chychrun to Ottawa at the 2023 trade deadline for a 2023 first-round pick (No. 12 overall, Daniil But), a 2024 second-round pick (used in a package to acquire Sergachev) and a 2026 second-round pick.
Fifteen months later, Ottawa shipped Chychrun, 26, to the Washington Capitals for 33-year-old defenseman Nick Jensen and a 2026 third-round pick.
Does anybody want to redo their trade grade?
Top photo of the NHL Draft at Sphere Las Vegas via Getty Images
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