{"id":462216,"date":"2025-02-09T11:22:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-09T16:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=462216"},"modified":"2025-02-09T11:22:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-09T16:22:39","slug":"build-off-last-months-success-utah-hockey-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/02\/09\/build-off-last-months-success-utah-hockey-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Hockey Club Forward Must Build Off of Last Month&#8217;s Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Utah Hockey Club forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/schmani01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-09_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nick Schmaltz<\/a> struggled mightily to produce during the first few months of the season. However, that changed in the month of January after he found his scoring touch again and it couldn\u2019t have come at a better time. Utah has been plagued by injuries all season. Most recently, the team\u2019s top centre, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/coolelo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-09_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Logan Cooley<\/a>, was ruled out indefinitely and placed on injured reserve with a lower-body injury. Fortunately, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/g\/guentdy01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-09_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dylan Guenther<\/a> returned from his own injury and led Utah to a 3-2 victory over the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/flyers\/\" target=\"_self\">Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> with an overtime buzzer beater. Although Utah doesn&#8217;t have the results to prove it, Schmaltz really stepped up during Guenther\u2019s absence and hopes it continues.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Flipping the Script<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Schmaltz&#8217;s first few months to start the season were ones to forget, as he scored zero goals in the first 24 games. By the end of January, the 28-year-old had 12 points in 11 games and had an eight-game point streak. It shows a complete turnaround for the forward. Utah doesn&#8217;t have much depth at right-wing, which is why the loss of Guenther created a major hole in the position. It also added more pressure on Schmaltz to perform and he has been able to do so.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With 11 goals and 30 assists for 41 points this season, Schmaltz is a natural-born playmaker with scoring abilities as well. He\u2019s never had more goals than assists in any season during his nine-year career. Schmaltz leads all Utah forwards in total ice time with 1,023 minutes and is third in shots attempts with 242. Schmaltz was hesitant to shoot the puck at the season\u2019s start, but he is now second on Utah in shots on goal with 118.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud83d\udea8 Power play goal for Schmaltzy! <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/i2EdXUD7Cg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/i2EdXUD7Cg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Utah Mammoth (@utahhockeyclub) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/utahhockeyclub\/status\/1885524767199158296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 1, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">One area of his game that Schmaltz needs to be better in is puck possession. Even the best players turn the puck over occasionally, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kellecl01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-09_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Clayton Keller<\/a>. Schmaltz leads all Utah forwards in giveaways with <a  href=\"https:\/\/moneypuck.com\/stats.htm\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">67<\/a>, with Keller right behind him with 50. For Schmaltz, 20 of the giveaways came in Utah\u2019s defensive zone. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He\u2019s also in the top 10 in the category with the likes of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/kucheni01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-09_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nikita Kucherov<\/a>, Nathan Mackinnon and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/p\/pastrda01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-09_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Pastrnak<\/a>. That\u2019s some pretty big company to be with despite that being a negative part of the game. It shows that Schmaltz receives the puck often, but he needs to take better care of it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Why Utah Needs Him<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With Utah still pushing for a playoff position, the team will need Schmaltz to continue producing. Utah is still six points behind the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/\" target=\"_self\">Vancouver Canucks<\/a> for the second wild card spot. Although Guenther\u2019s back and is arguably Utah\u2019s top right-winger, Schmaltz is still on the first line and must continue to play like it. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He has two points, a goal and an assist in the past five games. Utah has gone to overtime in four of the five games. Schmaltz could be due for a cold streak after January&#8217;s success, but the right-wing\/centre can\u2019t afford to go long periods without producing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Utah should still have high hopes of making the postseason as a playoff spot is well in reach. Schmaltz handled the burden of Guenther\u2019s lower-body injury, which forced him to miss 12 games. There are still 28 games remaining in the season, which is plenty of time for Utah to put together a string of wins. Much like when the team won seven out of nine games to start December. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It&#8217;s unlikely for Utah to surpass the Central Division leaders. However, the race to that second wild card in the Western Conference is wide open. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Schmaltz will be an important player going forward and must build off his success from last month to help the team win.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: James Guillory- Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Utah Hockey Club forward Nick Schmaltz struggled mightily to produce during the first few months of the season. However, that changed in the month of January after he found his scoring touch again and it couldn\u2019t have come at a better time. Utah has been plagued by injuries all season. Most recently, the team\u2019s top [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5373,"featured_media":462325,"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":[1063,762,6737,6926,77,2532,583],"class_list":["post-462216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mammoth","category-hockey","category-nhl","tag-clayton-keller","tag-david-pastrnak","tag-dylan-guenther","tag-logan-cooley","tag-nathan-mackinnon","tag-nick-schmaltz","tag-nikita-kucherov"],"modified_by":"Andrew Willis","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462216","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=462216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462326,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462216\/revisions\/462326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}