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The Utah Hockey Club salutes the fans after defeating the Los Angeles Kings in overtime in a preseason game on September 23, 2024 at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

Reliving Utah HC’s Most Memorable Inaugural Season Wins

Originally posted on The Hockey Writers
By Jeremy Schouppe | Last updated Apr 30, 2025 4:20 PM ET

The Utah Hockey Club had a phenomenal inaugural NHL season in Salt Lake City. This was a team that spent four seasons rebuilding as the Arizona Coyotes before relocating to Utah under new ownership. Over the past few seasons, the Coyotes were slowly improving, increasing their point-per-game percentage and games won in three-straight seasons.

In their first season in Salt Lake City, Utah managed to take another step forward, recording 89 points, 12 more than the season prior and the most that any Coyote team posted since the 2013-2014 season. Ultimately, Utah finished six points outside of a playoff spot, which more than met Utah’s general manager Bill Armstrong’s preseason expectations of playing “meaningful games” down the stretch.

Utah came into the season as the third-youngest roster in the NHL, being in the playoff hunt for much of the season has given Utah fans plenty of hope for this developing core going into next season. However, let’s take some time and look back on Utah’s three most memorable games of their inaugural season.

Utah’s Home Opener vs. Chicago Blackhawks

Utah’s first game of the season at their new Delta Center home was a spectacle. To engage new fans and get people out to the rink for Utah’s debut, their ownership group put together a bunch of pregame festivities, which was headlined by a pregame Shaboozey concert.

The festivities ensured there was a ton of energy and excitement in the building before the puck dropped on Utah’s inaugural season, and Utah’s performance kept the excitement in the building throughout the entire game.

Since it was announced that the Coyotes would be relocating from Arizona to Utah, the media drove home the point of how exciting this young core would be to watch, and they wasted no time showing this to their new fanbase. On opening night, we saw the young duo or Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther connect on two goals that Guenther put in the back of the net. We also saw multi-point nights from Barrett Hayton and Nick Schmaltz, Clayton Keller’s first goal after being named the first captain in Utah franchise history, and points from new blue line acquisitions Mikhail Sergachev and Ian Cole.

Utah captured a convincing 6-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks in the contest, and the victory sparked a three-game winning streak to start the season (they won their next two games in overtime.) After plenty of offseason hype, Utah got to put on a show for their fans and show them what all the excitement was about.

Karel Vejmelka Masterclass vs. Carolina Hurricanes

Connor Ingram came into the season as Utah’s starting goalie, a job he earned after finishing tied for the NHL lead in shutouts last season with the Coyotes. However, Ingram struggled mightily early on. Through his first 12 starts, he had a 3.40 goals-against average (GAA), a .879 save percentage (SV%), and allowed 6.91 goals to be scored above expected.

This less-than-desirable start for Ingram prompted Utah head coach Andre Tourigny to give Karel Vejmelka a start in a big game against one of the NHL’s best in the Carolina Hurricanes.

In this game, the Hurricanes outshot Utah 50-21. However, Vejmelka put on a show in the crease, saving 49 of the Hurricanes 50 shots and helping Utah earn a 4-1 victory. This was Vejmelka’s fifth start of the season, and with the win against the Hurricanes he had a 2.37 GAA, a .926 SV%, and had saved 3.85 goals above expected.

With all these metrics being much better than Ingram’s throughout the first month of the season, Vejmelka earned his first start back-to-back games in Utah’s next game against the Vegas Golden Knights, a game Utah went on to lose. Following the loss, Ingram was injured in Utah’s next game against the Washington Capitals and that left Vejmelka pretty much on his own to patrol Utah’s crease. He went on to start 51 of Utah’s next 64 games.

Now, after all the dust had settled on the season, Vejmelka’s consistency ultimately led him to be voted by his teammates as the first team MVP in Utah’s franchise history and netted him a five-year contract extension that kicks in next season. After a rough first three seasons in the NHL, I believe this start against the Hurricanes kickstarted a lot of the success he was able to have this season.

Playoff Positioning Battle With the Vancouver Canucks

Considering Armstrong’s expectation that Utah would play meaningful hockey this season, he would have been pleased with the intense playoff style games his young core got experience in throughout March and early April. While this team played numerous big games down the stretch trying to chase down the final Western Conference wild-card spot, none felt bigger than Utah’s March 16 win against the Vancouver Canucks.

Utah had taken losses in four of their six games leading up to this road contest at Rogers Arena in Vancouver. However, thanks to goals from Keller, Cooley, and Kevin Stenlund, Utah secured a 3-1 win in a game where they held the Canucks to 18 shots.

This win brought Utah within two points of the Canucks for the second wild-card spot and sparked another Utah hot streak as the team went on to go 9-5-2 to close out the season.

It was hard to choose an exact moment from Utah’s late-season push where they hovered in playoff contention and had many significant wins to stay in the race. Ultimately, this late-season run solidified the thought that this Utah team is on the rise and will be tough to play against for seasons ahead. Regardless of your favorite Utah moments this season, on many occasions this team showed signs of developing greatness, and they have given these new Utah hockey fans plenty of hope for what is to come.