{"id":462589,"date":"2025-02-21T22:00:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-22T03:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=462589"},"modified":"2025-02-21T22:00:39","modified_gmt":"2025-02-22T03:00:39","slug":"returning-from-lengthy-absence-sean-durzi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/02\/21\/returning-from-lengthy-absence-sean-durzi\/","title":{"rendered":"Utah Hockey Club Defenceman Returning From Lengthy Absence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Utah Hockey Club announced on Tuesday evening that defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/durzise01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-21_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sean Durzi<\/a> has recovered from a shoulder injury and will be activated off injured reserve.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Utah<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> head coach Andre Tourigny said Durzi is expected to make his return this Saturday against his former team, the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/kings\/\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Kings<\/a>, after his lengthy absence. It will be Utah\u2019s first game since the league started its break for the 4 Nations Face-Off on February 10.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Durzi Returns<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Per Tourigny, Sean Durzi will play on Saturday against his former team, the LA Kings.<\/p>\n<p>Logan Cooley is also day to day, but Bear says the blue jersey was an indication of non-contact.<\/p>\n<p>Connor Ingram is day to day. Tourigny doesn\u2019t expect Jaxson Stauber to play during this\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Brogan Houston (@houston_brogan) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/houston_brogan\/status\/1891990844326150329?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 18, 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;\">Durzi has missed a total of 52 games this season. However, he could have missed more games. Durzi was originally expected to be out until sometime in April.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The last game he played was on October 14, a 3-0 loss to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/devils\/\" target=\"_self\">New Jersey Devils<\/a>. The 26-year-old recorded a career high 41 points and <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/durzise01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">160<\/a> blocks in 76 games last season, 16 of them came on the power play.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Utah\u2019s needed a player like Durzi for a while now because of the many injuries on the team\u2019s defence. He is one of Utah\u2019s top puck-moving defenceman and he will likely get time on the power play. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He could jump right into Utah\u2019s top-four, joining <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/sergami01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-21_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikhail Sergachev<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/marinjo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-21_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Marino<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/coleia01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-02-21_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ian Cole<\/a>. However, Utah may choose to use Durzi on the third pairing with limited minutes and ease him back into action. It&#8217;s more likely that he will steadily work his way up the lineup and land on Utah&#8217;s top defensive pairing. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><strong>What He Adds to the Lineup<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Besides Sergachev, Utah was in dire need of another defenceman that can provide another layer of offence. The other Utah defencemen don&#8217;t have the same offensive mentality as Durzi, so he will fill the role perfectly. Since he is a brilliant skater, Durzi adds a dynamic element that Utah&#8217;s blue line was lacking. Utah is still just six points behind the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/canucks\/\" target=\"_self\">Vancouver Canucks<\/a> for a wild card spot.<\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: John Jones- Imagn Images<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Utah Hockey Club announced on Tuesday evening that defenceman Sean Durzi has recovered from a shoulder injury and will be activated off injured reserve.\u00a0Utah head coach Andre Tourigny said Durzi is expected to make his return this Saturday against his former team, the Los Angeles Kings, after his lengthy absence. It will be Utah\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5373,"featured_media":462789,"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":[34,4547,6671,4548,21],"tags":[4611,260,4522,200,3348],"class_list":["post-462589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-nhl","category-mammoth","tag-andre-tourigny","tag-ian-cole","tag-john-marino","tag-mikhail-sergachev","tag-sean-durzi"],"modified_by":"Andrew Willis","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462589","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=462589"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":462790,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462589\/revisions\/462790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}