Utah Hockey Club's future trending in a positive direction after first NHL season in Salt Lake City
SALT LAKE CITY — Reaching the NHL playoffs is a long shot for the Utah Hockey Club in its inaugural season in Salt Lake City.
Beyond Year 1, though, things are trending upward for the franchise.
Utah has plenty of draft picks over the next three years and has $21.5 million in projected cap space for the next season. Many key contributors are signed to long-term, team friendly deals. Starting goaltender Karel Vejmelka signed a five-year deal in March to stay.
Fan support has also been consistently robust throughout Utah's first season with hockey-capacity sellouts of 11,131 unobstructed seats for all regular-season home games.
'Everyone sees where we are from a roster standpoint: the youth that we have, the future that's ahead of us and then the intrigue of this market,' Utah owner Ryan Smith said. 'Honestly, the way the community has rallied behind everything that we're doing, it's super powerful.'
Smith faced a major challenge when he bought the Arizona Coyotes roughly a year ago and moved players and front office personnel to Salt Lake City with no previous hockey infrastructure in place. The Utah Olympic Oval from the 2002 Games, primarily a speedskating venue, had to be converted into a temporary practice facility and Delta Center, home of the NBA's Jazz, was primarily designed for basketball and not built for hockey.
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The quick fixes even extended to what to call the team. Utah Hockey Club was designated as a placeholder name for the franchise while fans voted on a permanent team name that will be rolled out ahead of the 2025-26 regular-season opener.
Still, the season played out on the ice and behind the scenes how Smith hoped.
'It was pretty daunting a year ago ... walking into a room and then not knowing what to say to the guys besides: 'Trust us. It's going to be OK,'' Smith said. 'I think people do good with change in life. I think uncertainty is really hard for people, and that was probably one of the more uncertain moments.'
Utah quickly won over many new fans with an energetic and physical brand of hockey. While making a late playoff push, Utah has scored 21 goals over its past five games while allowing only nine.
Utah is not likely going to wrestle the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference from Minnesota. Still, the team's late-season form of play bodes well for its ability to be competitive beyond April in future seasons.
'That's what you want to raise, that's what you want to be as a team … a team who will never quit,' Utah coach Andre Tourigny said after a victory over Calgary on April 1. 'There's no quitting in that room. There's no quitting in those players.'
Smith is quickly building up infrastructure that the team lacked when he purchased the team.
Utah will open a new, 115,780 square-foot practice facility in the southern suburb of Sandy in September. It will house two NHL-sized ice sheets and serve as the team's official headquarters. Training, medical, and dining facilities, offices, and a locker room will also be part of the facility.
Utah's practice facility will also be open for public use starting in January 2026.
'This is the place where we're going to inspire the next generation of kids in Utah to play the game of hockey,' Utah president of hockey operations Chris Armstrong said. 'And this is where we're going to put down all the habits and the identity of this team for the future as we pursue a Stanley Cup for Utah.'
Delta Center will be remodeled within the next three years to improve sightlines for hockey games and bring the arena up to NHL standards. It will also serve as the anchor of a new $1.8 billion sports and entertainment district in downtown Salt Lake City.
'This is the next step,' Smith said. 'There's a lot more. The arena remodel and everything else that's coming around there, it's all just part of a big puzzle that we got to go put together.'
Smith is trying to grow hockey in Utah by funding the construction of up to 20 new community rinks. Through Smith Entertainment Group, he plans to donate up to $500,000 per rink to help build out the sport across the state.
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But it helps to have some of these players coming through the prospect pipeline, too. These 17- and 18-year-olds won't make the Sabres a harder team to play against tomorrow. Still, the process needs to start somewhere. The players who are capable of playing high up in a lineup and have toughness aren't easy to acquire in trades and free agency, either. That's why the draft can be a useful mechanism for finding these types of players. Since Kevyn Adams became the Sabres' general manager, there has been some criticism that they've been drafting too many smaller skill players, particularly at forward. Of the forwards the Sabres have drafted in the top two rounds under Adams, only Anton Wahlberg was bigger than 6-feet tall. Prokhor Poltapov, Zach Benson and Konsta Helenius all have a competitive playing style, but until the Sabres are playing in bigger games and those players physically mature, it will be tough to gauge what type of jam they really have. Advertisement 'If people think that it's easy to detect who is going to be a tough or physical player at the NHL level when they're 17 or 18, they haven't been too involved in the NHL Draft,' Karmanos said. 'We try to project all kinds of attributes. Sometimes in the draft, you're just trying to find NHL players. I think the success rates will tell you that's what you should focus on, and not focus on player types, especially when it takes so long to develop them. If we have too many of a certain type, I hope they all play, and then we can trade them for other assets that maybe look a little different.' The problem is that if too many players project for similar roles, there won't be enough room to develop them all. Only so many players can get the valuable development minutes on the top line and power play in the AHL. Balancing out the prospect pool with different skill sets is part of building a pipeline. Of course, if you overcompensate for physicality at the expense of skill, you end up with a prospect pool full of bottom-six players. The rare find is a player who can play high up the lineup and has the 'hardness' to his game. This class has a few candidates. Martin is one such player in the top 10, but he's not the only one. Brampton winger Porter Marton plays a rugged style but has the hands and goal-scoring touch to be a top-line player. He's already been forced to learn the balance that the Tkachuk brothers deal with regularly when it comes to being an agitator. 'It's on my time,' Martone said. 'I don't let other people take me off my game. I don't need to be doing that every single time. You see Tkachuk in the playoffs. He chooses when he does create that stuff. For myself, I'm a very offensive player and like to create plays, so I can't spend all of my time in the penalty box.' Further down the board, you have a player like Windsor's Jack Nesbitt, a 6-foot-4 forward who likes to model his game after Lowry, Winnipeg's captain. He doesn't have the offensive upside of Martin or Martone, but he's a strong net-front player. He also fought seven times in the OHL last season, taking after his uncle, Brandon Biggers, who had a productive junior career. Nesbitt also took boxing lessons last summer. 'He would always show me videos of him fighting on YouTube and stuff like that, and it got me hyped up,' Nesbitt said. 'I'd always want to be like that a little bit and be a bit like him. 'Every team loves a good goal scorer and playmaker and stuff like that, but I feel like I have that asset to my game, and I also have the gritty part of my game,' Nesbitt said. 'I'm always trying to hit guys, I'll fight if I have to, and I can put the puck in the net.' Advertisement Everett's Carter Bear would also fall into the category of a competitive player, even if he's not as physically imposing as Martin and Nesbitt. He's recovering from a partial Achilles tear but is already back on the ice. He might be the best forechecker in the draft and has the offensive ability to match. Without the injury, would Bear be a top-10 pick? Then there's Justin Carbonneau, a winger who played in the QMJHL last season. At 6-foot-1 and just over 200 pounds, he has the look of a power forward. But will he be able to raise his level of physicality to match the higher levels? Among the defensemen, Barrie's Kashawn Aitcheson, who is 6-foot-1 and right around 200 pounds, looks like the toughest of the bunch. He racked up over 200 penalty minutes over the last two seasons in the OHL. 'You see a guy with his head down, and you want to make a big play on him,' Aitcheson said of his style of play. 'It's obviously more of an energy boost for your team. Give your team some juice, get them fired up.' What will be worth watching is how much these players get boosted by the way the Panthers have dominated the last few years. The way every player on that roster is committed to playing a competitive style of game all over the ice is the biggest thing separating them from the rest of the league. And there's no question the Sabres need more of that if they're going to become a team that is consistently playing in the postseason. Nobody in this draft is necessarily going to help the Sabres end the drought next season, but building that attitude has to start somewhere. (Photo of Michael Misa and Brady Martin at 2025 NHL Scouting Combine: Bill Wippert / NHLI via Getty Images)
