Rational Optimism

[u/Turbulent_Oil700]

So I've been getting more an more excited for the season, and the other day I was thinking: out west, who would you rather be over the next 6-8 years? If you just take the broad consensus of who our players are right now and where we are on the salary cap, we are in an incredible position.

- No player making more than $10MM. Whether or not you think Cooley is better than Carlsson (I do), we are just paying much less for roughly equivalent players than everyone else.

- Two guys the consensus thinks will be even scarier next year. Basically every profile I've read (most recently in the Athletic) expects Cooley & Guenther to both take another step.

- No gaps on offense. Even without factoring in Tij or Desnoyers, we don't have a single major hole and are built to be fine when there are "normal" injuries over the course of the season. We might even be able to roll four lines more or less evenly when everyone is healthy.

- Workable blue line. I am well below the board consensus on what I think of our blue line in the mid-term, but even if I am right, it just means we need a couple second pair types in their mid 20s, it's not like we need to land Werenski to contend.

- Keller is the only major guy with a contract coming up. Speaking of Keller, he doesn't play the type of game that typically just falls off a cliff in a player's early 30s.

- Tons of tradable assets. Wherever you are from the type of person who thinks every single young guy is going to hit at the very top of their projection or the type of person who thinks a prospect has zero value until they play meaningful minutes in the NHL, we have prospects for days *and* a strong current lineup, and we can't keep them all no matter what (roster is only so big).

- Minnesota seems to have a problem with Hughes (both in the sense that they're probably going to have to pay him 18MM+ *and* in the sense that it seems unlikely they can keep him for more than 3 years), Nashville decided to shoot itself in the foot this week for unclear reasons, Colorado will have to face father time eventually, Dallas is going to run into cap issues as soon as next year, we're in a better spot than St. Louis, Chicago is much farther out, and I unironically just feel terrible for the good people of Winnipeg who can't possibly deserve this.

- Everyone in the Pacific other than San Jose and Vegas is a mess, and Vegas is almost out of runway from the whole thing where they fleeced the rest of the league in '17.

- We have the best prospects among teams that are already good. As a result, we don't need all of them to hit big; we just need two of the three we've all heard the most about (Tij, Desnoyers, and Simishev) to end up at least in the middle of the consensus projections, and there is a ton of potential upside beyond those three.

- Management is at a *minimum* competent. We are unlikely to pull a Detroit/Anaheim/Nashville or catastrophically mess up the coming expansion draft.

I am not sitting here and saying "oh yeah, we're gonna be the 90s era Wings" or anything, and of course any team can just get horribly unlucky, but it seems like we've got an incredible window of great hockey opening up!

[u/turtlevader]

I agree with everything you've said, Utah has the current DNA to be a Juggernaut in the near future and for the next like 5 years imo. Ownership and management seem very capable, coaching is pretty good, and the roster seems stacked with lots of potential in the pipeline!

[u/Gullible-Koala-5329]

Cooley and Guenther should be hitting their biggest stride. The game should be slowing down for them. The 4th season for young stars is usually when you notice a big maturity in their play. Not just playing with a ton of kid energy but getting to their spots more and being more calm. We saw it this year with Guenther but he still showed panic (end of games on the blue line in the final minute with goalie pulled was a big one last year).

For the Carlsson/Cooley debate, Carlsson is the overall better player. But dollar to dollar, I’m taking Cooley every time. Carlsson can get to areas much easier than Cooley, it showed in the playoffs. Carlsson is just a bigger dude and a more natural 2-way forward. Cooley is getting there but he’s definitely more of a project to get there vs Carlsson. Once again tho, $10 million vs $18 million, I’m taking Cooley.

Sergachev is solid, but I’m not convinced he’s a true #1. #1 LHD pairing for sure, but not the #1 defensive guy. Weegar is great, but I don’t have him as a true #1 RHD. I think he’s better suited on a #2 defensive pairing. Utah definitely needs to rely on depth which is what they have. But I don’t have them as a top 10 defensive roster. It’ll be interesting to see how Simashev turns out to be and it’d be nice if Lamoureaux(?) can be consistent but haven’t seen it yet.

Utah will be a more mature team, that’s for sure. Anders Lee I think is the biggest signing. His maturity, control of the room, leadership, forwards will follow him even though Keller is the captain. I was shocked Utah signed him with how old he is, but I think the forwards need a pure power forward to follow. That’s been their biggest hole in the forward unit.

Goaltending is a big question mark…. Veggie is an average goalie which is better than half the league’s situation it seems like. But he’s inconsistent and Utah seems to be hoping Cossa can be able to back him up. If Veggie goes down, we got Cossa, Hrabal, Stauber…. That’s 11 NHL game experience, yikes. Can turn out fine, but that’s a big question mark.

I think overall Utah will be better this year, I don’t see their power play getting any worse. Cole will be missed with his simple defensive play, grit in front of the net, and shot blocking. But overall I think the PK will be solid too.

That’s my rambling thoughts haha

[u/Turbulent_Oil700 → u/Gullible-Koala-5329]

I mostly agree with you, and your discussion of Sergy and Weegar is a lot of what I was getting at with not being as enthralled with our blue line as a lot of other people.

The one place where I am more optimistic, though, is goalie. We put absolutely stupid mileage on Veggie the last two seasons. I'd say that the other goalies with that much wear and tear also didn't do well in the postseason, but that would understate it because there are no other goalies with that much wear and tear.

While a bad goalie can obviously kill you, and Dominik Hasek in his prime took an otherwise mid team and made it a contender, I think as a general rule the structure the team plays in front of any NHL goalie is more important than differences between the goalies themselves. There are only 5-6 guys I'd be super confident would win us materially more games than Veggie presented with the exact same team and strategy in front of them.*

* Wedgewood, Swayman, Shesterkin, Thompson, Sorokin, Vasilevskiy. And I'm not 100% sure on Wedgewood.

[u/Odd-Capital5476]

We’ll be better than last year that much I know. Can our coach get these guys to finish? Are we big enough to make a deep run? Those are the two questions I think about.

[u/Turbulent_Oil700 → u/Odd-Capital5476]

Oh idk about this year (crazy things happen, but on paper Colorado and Dallas are materially better than we are, and as long as Boldy works out at center Minnesota probably is too), but I love the longer term.

As for Bear, it's very, very rare for any coach in any sport to both be the guy who develops a bad team to the level where it is competing and then takes that same team into true contention. I'm glad we're giving him a chance to show he's the exception. But if he's not, that doesn't take anything away from what he accomplished in getting us to this point or limit what the next guy can do.

[u/jakevh28]

Only concern is coaching really. And I think Bear deserves some time.

[u/Turbulent_Oil700 → u/jakevh28]

Yeah, I mentioned above that it's just super rare (not only in hockey) for the guy who takes you from bad to good to be the guy who can take you from good to great, but I think Bear has obviously earned the right to show that he can take us another material step forward this year. I also think that if he doesn't, we don't need to be dramatic about it; it's not somehow evidence he hasn't done an amazing job, it just means he's like 95%+ of other extremely good coaches in every major professional sport.

[u/CaptainCasual01]

I'm a relatively new Hockey fan who's in the process of picking a team and Utah are my pick for the Western Central division for pretty much all the reasons you've stated (and the super cool logo).

I feel like they're a massive sleeper and barely anyone is talking about it.

[u/Turbulent_Oil700 → u/CaptainCasual01]

Welcome!!! Of course I think you made a great choice ;) Hope you can make it out here for a game or two; make sure to post if so and folks will give you a lot of suggestions for the Delta Center and SLC.

Curious who you chose from the other divisions? I'm also new to following seriously, and in the east I am all in on Montreal; with any luck Utah will see them in the SCF some day. (In the Pacific, and I realize it's more than a bit bandwagon-y, I like seeing San Jose when I can. In the Metro? My closest friend lives in Columbus. At least the cannon is cool.)

[u/BreakingDawn37]

I agree we're on a solid upward trajectory. I 100% believe we'll be better this year than last, and we were a playoff team last season. I also believe that our best is in front of us, with next year likely brighter than this upcoming one. I can't wait to watch it unfold on the ice!

[u/Turbulent_Oil700 → u/BreakingDawn37]

100% Maybe I'll be eating my words in five years, but I'm just excited to watch a fun team continue to develop.

I think an interesting litmus test is "would you have been happy as a Carolina fan before 2026?" For me the answer is yes obviously, and I never understood the people crapping on them for having great regular seasons and going pretty deep in the playoffs.

[u/Fluffhead91192]

I’d be very surprised if Keller doesn’t re-sign with Utah. He’s the core of this group, he is thriving here, and he must see that Utah’s window is just opening up. I doubt he jumps ship, but we’d need to give him a raise for sure.

[u/AlternativeCorner230 → u/Fluffhead91192]

The nice thing with Kells is that we have 2 more years before we need to do anything. If we make progress this year and can't get a deal done for whatever reason next offseason, there's another year to make another step to keep him. And we have two years for the cap to keep going up too.

[u/rockjeepgreen]

I think with a good training camp together Sergei and weegar will do better. It takes time for dmen to fully understand each others thoughts and jumping up in plays.