The Utah Hockey Club has a trio of players who could wind up as the team captains for 2024-25, but none of them are named Logan Cooley, who is entering his second full season in the NHL. And wow, what an underrated campaign he enjoyed this past year with the Arizona Coyotes in what was his first and last outing in the desert.
Cooley finished the year with First-Team All-Rookie honors, and he also took fifth place for the Calder in a class that included generational talent Connor Bedard. And Cooley didn’t finish too far behind Bedard in a few important categories, to be honest.
No, he didn’t come near the 60-plus-point mark like Bedard, but let’s remember something else: The Coyotes, as bad as they were last season, still had a much better team than the Chicago Blackhawks. It was Bedard’s team, but the Coyotes weren’t Cooley’s team, thanks to players like Clayton Keller and Lawson Crouse taking center stage.
Logan Cooley could build on a successful season with the Utah Hockey Club
Logan Cooley ended the 2023-24 season with 44 points, 20 goals, and 24 assists in 82 games in what were primarily middle-six minutes. Now that he knows what the rigors of the NHL feel like, expect a better sophomore season from the second-year forward.
Utah should be better as a unit in 2024-25, thanks to their recent acquisitions like Mikhail Sergachev, but also because this team, at least at forward, gained quite a bit of experience playing together as a unit last season.
That said, it shouldn’t surprise anyone in Salt Lake City if Cooley ended the 2024-25 season with 25-30 goals, and 30-40 assists, good for between 55 and 70 points. At some point, Utah could also be Cooley’s team, as he’s an ideal youngster to build around as he heads into his age-20 season.
He’s one of those players who, if he’s performing well, the entire Utah Hockey Team will be playing well, too. Keep an eye out for No. 92 this year, because his productivity might just surprise you.