On the first day of rookie camp, a member of the Utah Hockey Club front office staff asked me to help temper fans’ expectations for the team for this season. It’s not that he didn’t believe in his team – his intention was simply to underpromise and overdeliver.

Regardless of what the team, the media, or anyone else said before Oct. 8, the 3-0-0 start to the season and victory over two of last year’s playoff teams caused the odds to skyrocket. fan expectations. Some fans I wondered if the team would ever lose a game.

They would.

“It’s a long season,” team captain Clayton Keller said after Utah HC’s 4-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators on October 22. “You can’t be frustrated. You have to stay patient and improve every day and good things will happen.

That’s the kind of wisdom that comes from playing over 500 games in the NHL, as Keller has. Wins and losses come and go, but if you obsess too much about the past – good or bad – you can quickly lose focus on the task at hand.

How good is the Utah hockey club?

So, what can Utah HC fans expect this season? Is this the team that stole opening night at Madison Square Garden with a 6-5 win, or is this the team that blew a 4-1 third period lead to the San Sharks Jose, without a victory?

In reality, it’s somewhere in between.

This is likely a hybrid between the team that beat the Boston Bruins 2-1 in overtime and the team that held the league-leading Winnipeg Jets to a stalemate for nearly two complete periods.

In both games, they played in the right way which gives them a better chance of winning. The outcome can be determined by breaks and rebounds, but playing the right way gives you more opportunities to get breaks and rebounds.

Playing “the right way” can take many different forms. Against the Jets, they focused on keeping shooters on the outside. It worked for the most part, as they were the first team to keep Kyle Connor off the scoresheet all year. But when they stop focusing on those little things, like they did in the final five minutes against the Sharks, the floodgates open.

“It’s the best league in the world and it’s hard to do that consistently, every night,” Keller said after his team’s 5-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Oct. 30. When you’re not doing your best, there are always ways to find a way to win or get a point or two.

Getting Sean Durzi and John Marino back from injury would also help them have more success. There aren’t many teams that can lose two of their top three defensemen and still remain competitive every night.

A test of leadership

The team has new leaders, and this is as good a test as any for them. How will Keller, Lawson Crouse and the other veterans keep their teammates motivated and focused?

“I’m learning every day,” Keller said. “It’s the best league in the world and I’m going to do everything I can to help this group. We have a lot of great leaders and I don’t think it’s just one thing. I think that every day we learn different things. Different things happen. That’s what makes a special team. When things go your way or not, I think that’s when you learn the most about yourself and your team.

After their loss to the Sharks, the leadership group held a series of meetings to discuss what went wrong and how they could move forward. They looked at a number of aspects of the game to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Keller said he was happy to get back to it two days later in their game against the Flames – a game they would win 5-1.

“There are times when a big speech is not enough,” said head coach André Tourigny. “I think it’s more through action.”

A test for Tourigny

It is also an opportunity for André Tourigny to prove that he is much more than a simple development coach. Bill Armstrong hired him largely because of his strong track record developing and motivating young players in the OHL, QMJHL and Canadian World Junior Championship teams.

He was able to take guys like Keller, Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley to the next level. During the rebuild, that was the only real expectation. Now that the rebuild is coming to an end, Tourigny will demonstrate if he has what it takes to coach a winning team in the NHL.

“If we get better every day, we’ll be on the right track,” Tourigny said during his press conference before this year’s training camp. “I use the law of 1 percent: if we can be one percent better tomorrow, great – we’ve won the day. The next day, do the same. In 100 days, you can do the math. It will be much better.