3 Takeaways From Utah’s 6-4 Win Over Lightning

His second goal came off a John Marino shot that he managed to tip. Cooley also recorded an assist off of Nick Schmaltz’s game-winning goal, his third point of the game. He now has 53 points in the season.

Cooley’s back-to-back 20-goal seasons and his consistent improvement show that he continues to elevate his game as he progresses in his development. It’s not just the media and fans that are realizing that Cooley is getting better by the day. It’s the veterans too. Alex Kerfoot has played with him in his past two seasons. It’s not just the offense that impresses Kerfoot. It’s his full game.

“He’s really coming into his own,” Kerfoot said. “He’s wanting to go out there and be a difference-maker. He’s making plays when he’s on the ice. He has lots of confidence in himself, and he’s playing both ends of the ice, so he was dynamic tonight. I thought he was really good, and he’s just going to continue to get better.”

Cooley is also learning how to quickly overcome difficulties in his game as well. Last season, he had some long dry stretches throughout and didn’t put it all together until Dylan Guenther was added onto his line. This season, his longest was through the first couple of weeks in March. However, Cooley didn’t get mad or crumble under the pressure. He worked hard and found his scoring touch again.

“It’s always tough when you go through stretches of not playing your best, not producing,” Cooley said. “Getting that goal allows you to get some confidence back and it allows you to get back to your game.”

Head coach André Tourigny doesn’t put a cap on a young player’s ceiling anymore. He explained that he tries to push players as high as they can go, which is something he saw Cooley do during training camp. 

That’s what Cooley wants to be. The best version of himself. He wants to get to his highest level possible to compete for the playoffs and the Stanley Cup. He also wants to win for Utah’s fans. He finds the fanbase special, and it creates a motive for him.

“I try to be the best version of myself each and every day,” Cooley said. “I try to get as good as I can be and become the player I want to be. It comes back to the team and trying to get in the playoffs and eventually winning a Cup. That’s the biggest drive for me right now. Being in Utah, it’s special in front of these fans. There’s no better feeling.”

Cooley also got a little bonus for hitting the 20-goal plateau. That bonus is built into every rookie contract, and so for the second straight season, Cooley was able to get his.

We’re only witnessing the beginning of Cooley’s rise to dominance. It feels like he gets better season after season. That includes when he made the jump from college to the NHL. If he can push himself even further next season, it could be an even bigger season for the young star.

Utah’s Response Time Led to Win

Utah hasn’t always been the best at responding to adversity. If you look at the beginning of the season, they were always losing one-goal games. They couldn’t get over the hump of quickly responding to try to win.

The game against the Lightning showed that Utah has learned and grown from those errors. Anthony Cirelli tied the game up at two in the second period, but less than a minute later, Utah was attacking and Alex Kerfoot cashed in his opportunity by standing in front of the net and putting home Kevin Stenlund’s shot.

It happened again when Jake Guentzel scored off of a tip. 30 seconds later, Cooley responded with a tipped goal of his own. Despite losing the momentum, Utah was able to bring it back their way each time, which eventually led to them taking a comfortable two-goal lead later in the third period.

Utah did a great job generating chances in front of the net. If it wasn’t passes to the crease like how Josh Doan scored the first goal of the game, it was the tips like what Kerfoot and Cooley had.

“We’ve got some guys in our team that do a good job of getting to the front of the net,” Kerfoot said. “The D did a good job getting shots through and we’re winning battles around there. I think that this time of year, it’s hard to score goals, and you got to get through those areas, find ways to get rebounds and extend possessions. It’s not always going to be pretty, but we’ll take them.”

The pressure has also been fantastic from Utah’s top line of Cooley, Schmaltz, and Clayton Keller. Throughout the season, it was mainly Barrett Hayton centering the top line but Tourigny has changed it up and now Cooley has found some rhythm on his new line.

“I think as you keep playing with each other, you gain chemistry and read off each other,” Cooley said. “But overall, we’re getting to the net too. We’re not just making plays on the outside.”

Tourigny loved the urgency from his group to respond. He thought his whole team was ready to play against one of the best teams in the league and found out the correct way to beat the Lightning.

“I think that the focus from the beginning, right from the start of the game, the execution, the urgency was the lead,” Tourigny said. “I think everybody was engaged. Everybody was connected. We’re really disciplined, and it’s the way we had to play against those guys. Great effort from the boys.”

Although letting in four goals isn’t ideal, it’s a win and Utah really needs those right now. It was also against one of the best teams in the league which shows that Utah is maturing. They’re not repeating the same mistakes they made at the beginning of the season which is exactly how teams get better.

Trying to Be the League’s Next Lightning

The Lightning are one of the prime examples in the NHL of how to run a team and a franchise. Since the 2013-14 season when the core of Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Brayden Point, Victor Hedman, Steven Stamkos, and head coach Jon Cooper started forming, the Lightning have only missed the playoffs once. 

The elite, often homegrown talent has been a major reason why they’ve been able to reach four Stanley Cup Finals in the past decade or so. They’re patient, and they’ve learned from their mistakes. After the 2018-19 season where the Lightning had one of the best regular season records in history that led to the team being swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets, they made some changes and regrouped. They took out the Blue Jackets in the first round and eventually won the 2020 Stanley Cup.

They are a blueprint franchise, one Utah players want to follow as they continue their development toward competing for a playoff spot.

“Early on, a lot of us just were trying to hang in there,” Cooley said. “Now, we know we could beat these top teams with superstars and organizations that do things the right way. For us, that’s what we want to get to. We want to be the Tampa Bay Lightning of the league. We’re working to that spot. We just got to keep going.”

Tourigny agreed with Cooley on the fact that he wants Utah to be the next Lightning of the league. It’s more than just the on-ice talent. It’s the winning culture they’ve managed to build.

“Winning is extremely tough,” Tourigny said. “It’s a tough league. Winning once, it’s incredible. Winning on a consistent basis every year and being a contender every year. You need to look at what they do, and I think their culture is rock solid.”

By taking down the Lightning, who are still a very good team in the league, Utah showed that they are definitely getting closer to that point of consistently contending for a playoff spot. They have the pieces. It’s just about putting it all together.

Looking at the playoff picture, this season is getting grimmer by the second. Luckily, Utah got two points against the Lightning which doesn’t lose them any ground. However, the St. Louis Blues and Calgary Flames both won on Saturday. The Blues hold the second wild card spot with 79 points. The Flames are right behind them with 78. The Canucks did lose against the New York Rangers, which keeps them at 76, and Utah is right behind them with 75.

The catch is that the Blues have a very easy schedule to close out the season. Utah does not. They would also need to leapfrog the two other teams in front of them which isn’t going to be easy. However, if Utah can play this way if not better consistently next season, they won’t just be in the wild card hunt. They could compete for a top-three division spot as well. They’ve been one of the best teams after the 4-Nations break. It just needs to be like that for the whole season.

Twelve games remain now for Utah. Next up are the Detroit Red Wings, who visit Salt Lake City on Monday, which will be the final game of the homestand. The Red Wings are 32-30-6 this season and are coming off a loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. These two teams last played at the beginning of March, where Utah won 4-2.