After opening their inaugural NHL campaign with three straight wins, it took the Utah Hockey Club more than a month and a half to string together another set of back-to-back wins and two full months before the start of their second three-game win streak. Between these two stretches of great hockey from Utah, they struggled and were slowly falling out of playoff contention. That is until recently, anyway.
At the end of November, Utah started to heat up. Following a three-game losing streak, Utah bounced back and beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-1. Utah then lost a tight game to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who lead the Atlantic Division. They then beat the Montreal Canadiens before falling to the Edmonton Oilers in a heartbreaking overtime loss.
This was when many people started to believe Utah was turning a corner. They beat two opponents that they should have and lost to two of the best teams in the NHL by one goal. However, this was just the beginning of a red-hot stretch of games for Utah. After blowing a two-goal lead to the Oilers, Utah won seven of their next nine games and extended their win streak to four games with a win over the Minnesota Wild on Friday night.
Over Utah’s last seven games, their star players have taken their game to another level. They have entirely changed this season’s course and got Utah back into the playoff conversation, nearing the regular season’s halfway point.
Utah Star Players Dominating During Recent Hot Streaks
With Utah winning seven of their last nine games, it should not be surprising that Utah’s star players have been the ones leading the charge. To win games consistently in the NHL, teams need their best players to play like their best players night in and night out. For most of the season, I would say that has been the case for Utah, with Clayton Keller, Dylan Guenther, Logan Cooley and Mikhail Sergachev being their top performers.
But when you look at these four players’ numbers during Utah’s winning stretches of hockey compared to when the team has struggled, it shows just how important these four players are. To illustrate this point, this table shows these four players’ points per game throughout various season stretches.
| 2024-25 Season | First 3 & Last 9 Games Removed | First 3 Games Of 2024-2025 | Last 9 Games | |
| Clayton Keller | 0.96 | 0.76 | 2.00 | 1.22 |
| Dylan Guenther | 0.93 | 0.76 | 1.66 | 1.33 |
| Logan Cooley | 0.86 | 0.71 | 1.66 | 1.22 |
| Mikhail Sergachev | 0.73 | 0.61 | 1.00 | 1.22 |
From this, you can see that Utah’s stars have dominated during both stretches, where Utah has played consistently winning hockey and struggled throughout a lengthy stretch where they could not string back-to-back wins. To me, this creates an interesting debate around whether Utah’s stars need to continue to play at the level they have during this past nine-game stretch or if Utah’s depth players need to step up when these four players go through rough patches.
Do Utah’s Stars Need to Continue Perform, or Does Depth Need to Step Up to Make the Playoffs?
This is a difficult conversation because Utah’s depth offensive players have struggled at points throughout the season, but so have their star players. The blame cannot be placed solely on either group, but the drastic difference in Utah’s results from when their stars put up over 1.00 points per game to when they don’t is concerning either way.
Related: Analyzing the Utah HC’s Underperforming Third Line
To some degree, it should be expected that you will struggle to win games when your best players are not at their best. But when you become as reliant as Utah has on their star players to put up points to win games, it creates the inconsistent results Utah has had much of the season.
Like the rest of the roster, Utah’s star players are still young and learning to dominate at the NHL level. While they continue to find their way and develop, there will be times when guys like Keller, Guenther and Cooley will struggle. Utah will need their depth scorers to get going and take some pressure off the top six when this inevitably happens. In the 2023-24 season, the Arizona Coyotes had seven players score 20 goals or more. This season in Utah, only four players are on pace to score 20 goals for this team, three of which are Guenther, Keller and Sergachev, and the fourth is Jack McBain, who has an absurd 33.3% shooting percentage.
Can Utah’s Stars Lead Them to the NHL Playoffs, or Do They Need More Firepower?
The Western Conference playoff race is already setting up for an exciting finish. As we near the halfway mark of the NHL season, six teams are within six points of the two Western Conference wild-card playoff spots, and Utah is only one point behind the Dallas Stars, who sit in third place in the Central Division.
More than likely, Utah will be battling with the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and the Vancouver Canucks for the final couple of playoff spots. These are all excellent teams on paper that have made and succeeded in the playoffs. Going into the season, general manager Bill Armstong expected Utah to be in the playoff race, compete with these teams, and play meaningful hockey down the stretch. If they want to stay in this position, Utah needs to have a combination of their stars continuing to play well like they have over Utah’s last nine games. But they need depth offensive players like Lawson Crouse and Matias Maccelli to step up and make a more significant impact.
However, if Utah is serious about pushing for the NHL playoffs, they must pack a punch before the trade deadline by adding more goal-scoring to take some pressure off of Keller, Guenther, Cooley and Sergachev. If Utah were to add a top-line center or two goal scorers who could play down the lineup, Utah would be in a great place to challenge for a playoff spot and potentially make a run in the playoffs with Sean Durzi and John Marino scheduled to return and bolster the blueline late in the season. Until these two return, hopefully, Utah finds depth-scoring consistency and potentially makes additions up front. Utah will be top-heavy and rely on Keller, Guenther, Cooley and Sergachev to carry them to a playoff position.
