{"id":460854,"date":"2025-01-18T07:28:38","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T12:28:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=460854"},"modified":"2025-01-18T07:28:38","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T12:28:38","slug":"top-forwards-absence-affect-utah-hockey-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/01\/18\/top-forwards-absence-affect-utah-hockey-club\/","title":{"rendered":"How Top Forward&#8217;s Absence Affects The Utah Hockey Club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Utah Hockey Club recently lost one of its top forwards, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/guentdy01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-18_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dylan Guenther<\/a>, to a lower-body injury suffered against the Florida Panthers. The injury occurred when Guenther collided with Panthers captain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/barkoal01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-18_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aleksander Barkov<\/a>, putting Guenther on injured reserve. With this, Utah is now without its leading goal scorer and one of the team\u2019s power play specialists. The 21-year-old winger is expected to return sometime in February after registering 34 points in 40 games, including 16 goals. There are many aspects of the team that will miss Guenther&#8217;s presence and other Utah forwards will need to step up amid the top forward&#8217;s absence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>The Power Play\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During the month of December, Utah had one of the top power plays in the NHL. It was a big reason for the team\u2019s string of wins at the time. Prior to the new year, Utah scored 11 power play goals in 12 games. Guenther leads all of Utah with seven power play goals and his shoot-first mentality plays a large part in that. He\u2019s also second behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kellecl01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-18_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Clayton Keller<\/a> for the team lead in power play points with 16 and is second on Utah with 98 shots on goal. Utah will have to work harder if they wish to stay hot on the power play, which is now 14th in the league at 21.8%.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Guenther was on Utah\u2019s top power play unit this season, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/doanjo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-18_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Doan<\/a> has taken his place for now. The top unit now consists of Keller, Doan, Logan Cooley, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/sergami01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-18_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikhail Sergachev<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/schmani01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-18_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nick Schmaltz<\/a>. They most recently scored a power play goal in Thursday\u2019s 5-3 defeat to the New York Rangers, which made it two straight games with a pp goal. The loss of Guenther on Utah\u2019s power play can\u2019t be understated. Perhaps Keller and Cooley can carry the load, but Utah loses a scoring threat and it could negatively affect Utah\u2019s pp.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Yeah, this kid is good \ud83d\udc4f And what a pass by the Captain! <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/X2Jv6R5ieL\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/X2Jv6R5ieL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Utah Mammoth (@utahhockeyclub) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/utahhockeyclub\/status\/1880089066768855173?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 17, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Who Will Need to Step Up<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Without Guenther, a few other Utah forwards will need to play at a higher level to cover for his absence. As the team\u2019s top line right-winger, Schmaltz needs to figure out how to find the back of the net more often. The 28-year-old has only scored eight goals this season, despite having 34 points in 44 games. Unlike Guenther, Schmaltz is a pass-first player that\u2019s less likely to shoot the puck when the opportunity is available. He has just three goals in the last 13 games, including a two-game goal streak and his 8.7 shooting percentage reflects that. Schmaltz also has the worst plus\/minus rating on Utah with a -13.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Everyone knows what Keller is capable of doing already, but he will most certainly be needed with Guenther out. As the team\u2019s best player and captain, Keller&#8217;s expected to do just about everything offensively. He already leads Utah with 44 points, including a team-high 30 assists and 108 shots on goal. Keller, Schmaltz and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/haytoba01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-18_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Barrett Hayton<\/a> make up Utah\u2019s first line and Keller is the line\u2019s driving force. As a line, the trio leads Utah in goals with 16 and in shot attempts with <a  href=\"https:\/\/moneypuck.com\/lines.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">408<\/a>. There\u2019s no doubt that Keller will be relied on even more with the team\u2019s leading goal scorer out indefinitely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Utah struggled at the end of December and it\u2019s continuing into the new year. The team\u2019s only won once in its past six games, giving up 20 goals in that span. The power play continues to produce, but it won\u2019t matter if Utah is unable to keep the puck out of the net. Losing Guenther doesn&#8217;t help and Utah will have to play without him going forward. They have the talent to weather the storm, now it\u2019s about powering through it and contributing more.<\/p>\n<p><\/span>Main Photo: Rob Gray-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Utah Hockey Club recently lost one of its top forwards, Dylan Guenther, to a lower-body injury suffered against the Florida Panthers. The injury occurred when Guenther collided with Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov, putting Guenther on injured reserve. With this, Utah is now without its leading goal scorer and one of the team\u2019s power play [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5373,"featured_media":461023,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,4547,4548],"tags":[1083,2661,1063,6737,6889,6926,200,2532,8030],"class_list":["post-460854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mammoth","category-hockey","category-nhl","tag-aleksander-barkov","tag-barrett-hayton","tag-clayton-keller","tag-dylan-guenther","tag-josh-doan","tag-logan-cooley","tag-mikhail-sergachev","tag-nick-schmaltz","tag-utah-hockey-club-analysis"],"modified_by":"Tommy Bennett","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5373"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460854"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":461024,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460854\/revisions\/461024"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}