The Utah Hockey Club is dealing with another unfortunate blow. On Friday, only one day after it was announced Sean Durzi would need surgery and would miss four to five months, Utah Head Coach Andre Tourigny announced that John Marino is still "months" away from returning.
John Marino was acquired by the Utah Hockey Club via trade this past offseason, just a couple of days before the 2024 NHL Entry Draft. At the time, this move inspired a lot of hope in the new Utah fanbase, as it was one of the first moves General Manager Bill Armstrong made to make this team more competitive and show that fanbase that this team is ready to compete for an NHL Playoff spot in the Utah Hockey Club's inaugural season.
However, John Marino would be ruled out before the start of training camp with an upper-body injury and was labelled week-to-week, which had just changed yesterday when Tourigny announced Marino would not be available for months.
Injured John Marino "months" away from making Utah Hockey Club debut
When initially ruled out, Marino was given a week-to-week injury designation and would miss the entire training camp and preseason. Finally, once the preseason had wrapped up and final roster decisions had been made, the Utah Hockey Club would place John Marino on the injury reserve. At the time, Cole Bageley from KSL Sports reported that Marino was still weeks away from debuting for the Utah Hockey Club.
Since then, everything has been relatively quiet on the Marino injury front. However, Tourigny dropped the bombshell on Friday that Marino reaggravated whatever upper-body injury he sustained (via KSL Sports), which was never fully announced.
This announcement is a fatal blow to the Utah Hockey Club's blueline. Before this announcement that Marino's timeline for a return would be months and only weeks, Utah fans could take solace in the fact that the club would maybe only have to go a few weeks before getting a bonafide top-four defenseman back in the lineup to fill Durzi's role.
However, now that hope is all gone, Utah fans are stuck with a blueline with only one defender with a 51% expected goal share or higher (via NaturalStatTrick).
With Mikhail Sergachev as the only proven reliable defender on Utah's blueline this season, Bill Armstrong has some moves to make if he will help keep this team in contention for an NHL Playoff spot. If he does not act quickly, Utah's inaugural season will spiral out of control quickly!