How good is the Utah Hockey Club, actually?

On the very first day of rookie camp, a member of the Utah Hockey Club front office staff asked me to help temper the fans’ expectations of the team for this season. It’s not that he didn’t believe in his squad — his intention was simply to under-promise and over-deliver.
Regardless of what the team, the media or anyone else said prior to Oct. 8, starting the season 3-0-0 and beating two of last year’s playoff teams caused fans’ expectations to soar. Some fans wondered if the team would ever lose a game.
They would.
“It’s a long season,” said team captain Clayton Keller after Utah HC’s 4-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Oct. 22. “You can’t get frustrated. You’ve got to stay patient and get better every day and good things happen.”
That’s the kind of wisdom that comes from playing more than 500 games in the NHL, as Keller has. The wins and losses come and go, but if you get too fixated on the past — good or bad — you can quickly lose focus on the task at hand.
So, what can fans expect from Utah HC this season? Is it the team that stole opening night at Madison Square Garden with a 6-5 win, or is it the team that blew a 4-1 lead in the third period to the winless San Jose Sharks?
Realistically, it’s somewhere in between.
It’s probably a hybrid between the team that beat the Boston Bruins 2-1 in overtime and the team that held the league-leading Winnipeg Jets in a stalemate for almost two full periods.
In both games, they played the right way, which gives them a better chance at winning. The outcome can be determined by breaks and bounces, but playing the right way gives you more opportunities to get breaks and bounces.
Playing the “right way” can take a lot of different forms. Against the Jets, they focused on keeping shooters to the outside. It worked for the most part, as they were the first team to hold Kyle Connor off the score sheet all year. But when they stop focusing on those little things, as they did in the last five minutes against the Sharks, the flood gates open.
“It’s the best league in the world and it’s hard to do it consistently, every single night,” Keller said after his team’s 5-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Oct. 30. “That’s something we’re striving for and even nights when you don’t have your best, there are still ways you can find a way to win or get a point or two.”
Getting Sean Durzi and John Marino back from injury would also help them be more successful. There aren’t a lot of teams that can lose two of their top three defensemen and still be competitive every night.
The team has some new leaders, and this is as good a test as any for them. How will Keller, Lawson Crouse and the other veterans keep their teammates motivated and focused?
“I’m learning every day,” Keller said. “It’s the best league in the world and I’m going to do everything I can to help this group. We have a lot of great leaders and I don’t think it’s just one thing. I think day by day, you learn different things. Different things happen. That’s what makes a special team. When things are going your way and when things aren’t, I think that’s when you learn the most about yourself and your team.”
After their loss to the Sharks, the leadership group had a series of meetings to discuss what went wrong and how they could move forward. They reviewed a number of aspects of the game to make sure that never happened again.
Keller said he was glad to be able to get back to it two days later in their game against the Flames — a game they would win 5-1.
“There are some times when a big speech doesn’t (cut) it,” said head coach André Tourigny. “I think it’s more by action.”
It’s also a chance for André Tourigny to prove himself as more than just a developmental coach. Bill Armstrong hired him largely because of his strong track record of developing and motivating young players in the OHL, the QMJHL and Canada’s World Junior Championship teams.
He has been successful at getting guys like Keller, Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley to the next level. During the rebuild, that was the only real expectation. Now that the rebuild is coming to an end, Tourigny will show whether he has what it takes to coach a winning team in the NHL.
“If we get better every day, we’ll be on the right track,” Tourigny said at his press conference ahead of this year’s training camp. “I use the law of the one percent: If we can be one percent better tomorrow, perfect — We won the day. Next day, do the same. In 100 days, you can do the math. It will be much better.”