The Utah Hockey Club have signed Kailer Yamamoto on a one-year, two-way contract.
Utah brought Kailer Yamamoto to training camp on a professional tryout contract (PTO). This type of contract allows teams to sign a player temporarily throughout the preseason to give them a chance to show their value and elevate their talent without committing for an entire season.
Yamamoto has played 50+ games in the NHL in the last four seasons. He has a career-high 41 points but has yet to eclipse the 25-point mark in the previous two years. But that did not stop Yamamoto from impressing throughout the entirety of the Utah Hockey Club's training camp, where he played so well that Utah would have been crazy not to keep him for the entire year.
Utah Hockey Club signs Kailer Yamamoto for the inaugural season
It was evident that Head Coach Andre Tourigny liked what he saw from Yamamoto, as he played the second most games in the preseason for Utah behind Josh Doan, whom we believed Yamamoto was competing with for the last roster spot.
In his four preseason games, Yamamoto scored three goals, created seven high-danger chances, and had nine scoring chances. Defensively, he also significantly impacted throughout the preseason, leading all Utah players in takeaways per 60 minutes at five-on-five.
Despite his small size, Yamamoto plays a game you love to see out of a bottom-six forward; last year, he ranked among the top one per cent of forwards in forecheck involvement and in the top 27% of forwards in defensive wins-above-replacement (via JFreshHockey).
However, even with Utah signing him for the entire year, Bill Armstrong still gave himself a lot of roster flexibility, keeping Yamamoto on a two-way contract. This will allow Armstrong and Tourigny to freely move him between the AHL and NHL and deploy different lineups when the injury bug inevitably hits.
Yamamoto will likely start in the NHL with the Utah Hockey Club, as Nick Bjugstad will miss some time at the start of the season before making his Utah debut. I assume you will likely see him on the third or fourth line and possibly on the penalty kill. Yamamoto's game looks to be in the best spot in years if he can continue to provide energy on the forecheck and the defensive end while adding some depth scoring. I expect Yamamoto to play 50+ games for Utah this season and will be a valuable asset as this team tries to compete for the playoffs for the first time in years.