Ian Cole #28 of the Utah Hockey Club plays the Colorado Avalanche in the first period at Ball Arena on December 12, 2024 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
(Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY – While the Utah Hockey Club has played to the expectations of General Manager Bill Armstrong with a .500 record, their situation has been trending in the wrong direction for the last few weeks. With eight losses in their last 10 games, continued second period woes and an inability to win games at home, several of Utah’s veterans recently weighed in on the issues.
In the fourth year of a rebuild, Utah is currently one of the youngest teams in the National Hockey League.
While they did make an effort to bring in guys like Kevin Stenlund, Ian Cole, Olli Maatta and Robert Bortuzzo to add some veteran depth, the roster is still mostly inexperienced.
With players like Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, Josh Doan, Barrett Hayton and Matias Maccelli all under the age of 25, Utah is fairly young amongst their forwards.
Couple that with the fact that Captain Clayton Keller and Alternate Captain Mikhail Sergachev are only 26, there’s clearly a lot of room for both individual and team development.
According to 35-year-old defenseman Ian Cole, maturity has been a point of discussion for this young team as of late.
“I think maturity is a thing that we’ve been talking about,” Cole said.
“How do we handle these emotional swings? How do we handle our frustrations? Do we get mad and start slamming sticks and yelling up and down the bench? Or do we handle it like adults, learns lessons and change behavior?”
Ian Cole on Utah’s recent struggles:
“I think confidence is part of it…I think maturity is a thing that we’ve been talking about.”
“How do we handle these emotional swings? How do we handle our frustrations?”
“When we put our mind to things…We can see immediate improvement.” pic.twitter.com/L8Pt7Ak0wm
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) January 15, 2025
Maturity is not something that develops universally overnight. It’s generally a strenuous process that includes some painful learning experiences.
Moments of raw emotion when a player commits a costly penalty, forfeits the puck in a critical area, or struggles to find consistency and collectively learn what it takes to produce a complete game every night.
So, while it can be brutal at times to weather these hot and cold streaks, it’s all part of the process.
Luckily, Utah has proven they’re capable of making the right adjustments. However, they key is doing it on a consistent basis with few errors.
Once that happens, Utah will only benefit from these situations as they understand what it truly takes to compete for a Stanley Cup.
“When we put our minds to things, when we focus on things, we can see some immediate improvement in those aspects,” Cole added.
“It just shows that we are more than capable of doing it. But how do we do it at that level, all time, every period, every single game? That’s a very mature mentality you have to have to do that.”
It’s no mystery that the Utah Hockey Club has lacked consistency in recent weeks.
With continued second period woes, losses stacking up, and an inability to win on home ice, Utah has simply been unable to play a complete game as of late.
So, can they fix it?
According to 30-year-0ld Olli Maatta, it’s more about showing up on a nightly basis if they want to emerge from their current slump.
Olli Maatta on Utah’s recent struggles:
“Consistency is not there…I don’t think we are consistently playing at that level that we can every night.”
“You’ve got to pull a full 60 together…We have that 20 minutes, 40 minutes & then a bad 20 minutes. You can’t have that.” pic.twitter.com/vfKxWxYrT7
— Cole Bagley (@BagleyKSLsports) January 15, 2025
“Everybody kind of has to look at ourselves and their game. That’s personally what I’m doing,” Maatta said.
“But knowing we’ve got the answer, this group has shown it throughout the season. You’ve got to bring it every night. It’s a tough league. There’s no easy games. Everything matters now…We’ve just got to show up.”
Looking at it a step further, poor second periods have been one of the primary reasons for Utah’s recent struggles.
Over the last 10 games, they’ve been outscored 12-6 during the middle frame.
But even when they’ve adjusted and found success in the second, they seem to struggle in one of the other periods.
“You’ve got to pull a full 60 together…We have that 20 minutes, 40 minutes and then a bad 20 minutes. You can’t have that,” Maatta explained.
Based on the age of this team, these are fairly understandable issues as it appears to boil down to maturity and consistency.
While it’s certainly peculiar that Utah struggles so heavily in the second period and on home ice, the overall root of the problem seems clear.
With time, they’ll become more mature and once they can learn how play complete games, that’s when they’ll experience a significant shift and should be able to turn the corner.
The Utah Hockey Club will host the New York Rangers on Thursday night. The game can be viewed on SEG+. Fans can also tune in on air on the KSL Sports APP or on 97.5 and 1280 The Zone. Click here for the full schedule.
