Can Utah make a big splash before the NHL Trade Deadline?
Could the Utah Hockey Club be looking at a shopping spree ahead of the March 7 NHL trade deadline?
Despite sitting six points shy of the second wildcard Wednesday, Utah has remained in the playoff chase for much of the 2024-25 season and is already beginning to see roster reinforcements, most recently with defenseman John Marino who made his season debut Tuesday following back surgery.
On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk outlined the bevy of assets available to Utah general manager Bill Armstrong and if the team could be looking to make its latest big splash.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Utah has $11.6 million in current cap space, which could accrue to well north of $20 million by the deadline. You look at their draft picks. Utah has every single one of their draft picks for the first six rounds this year. Next year, they have a couple extra second rounders, an extra third. When the change happened from Arizona to Utah, it was like, ‘Man, what kind of GM can Bill Armstrong be now that the shackles are off for him?’ We saw it as he alluded to with the Sergachev deal in the summer. Do you think they are really serious about doing something like that again?
Frank Seravalli: I do think they are. I will tell you this. Bill Armstrong is not a very popular GM amongst his peers and the reason for that – we actually talked about it on the pod – because he calls and he asks about top-end players. A lot of times, the conversations are super short, and sometimes he even gets hung up on, I bet. Where it’s like, ‘Why are you calling about that guy?’ But that Sergachev deal is a great example because maybe about six months before it even materialized at the Draft, he had called and asked Tampa Bay about Sergachev. Months later, he gets a call back of, ‘Hey, are you still interested? If so, here is what we might be looking at.’ And you see a deal start to come together. I know for certain that Bill Armstrong has been making those types of calls this season and I wouldn’t be shocked, let’s just connect a dot, what about one of the guys in Vancouver that we have been talking about all year long? Utah has the pieces to get something like that done and they are ready to take a swing and potentially add a game-changing player. I don’t think there is a team in the NHL that is better well-positioned for the future than Utah – draft picks, prospects, cap space, and they have star players already in their fold. That’s a pretty dangerous combination.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here: