The Utah Hockey Club won’t be learning a new system in 2024-25, as their head coach is a familiar face from the old Arizona Coyote days. Andre Tourigny will be the bench boss this season. He has over 20 years of coaching experience, and it’s something the Utah Club will lean on during their first year in Salt Lake City.
Better yet, Tourigny is also the perfect coach for an up-and-coming team, as most of his time behind the bench came in the QMJHL and the OHL. On the junior hockey circuit, Tourigny coached three different teams, and while his squads never won any league championships, they made several deep playoff runs, meaning he enjoyed quite a good bit of coaching success.
Tourigny got his big break in the NHL in July 2021 when the Coyotes brought him on to coach the team on a three-year deal. This came roughly a year after the Yotes made a surprise appearance in the NHL playoffs but were also in the midst of rebuilding, so it was going to be a rough outing.
Andre Tourigny will lead the Utah Hockey Club in Year 1 of the franchise
That first season saw the Yotes finish with just 57 points and an eighth-place finish in the Central Division. Come the 2022-23 season, however, Arizona improved despite their deteriorating relationship with those in the Phoenix area sans their passionate fanbase, of course. Tourigny led the team to a 70-point finish and seventh place in the Central, setting the stage for an even better third season in the desert.
For a while, the Yotes looked like a surprise during their final year in Arizona, but the team was forced back to reality at roughly the halfway point of the season. Still, Tourigny’s leadership improved the Yotes to a 77-point finish overall, even if they didn’t improve their ranking in the standings.
Given the Coyotes steady improvement on the ice throughout Tourigny’s tenure and owner Ryan Smith’s confidence in the coach, it’s safe to expect continued growth now that the team is in Salt Lake City. They may not be playing hockey in late April or in May 2025 just yet, but if Tourigny leads the team to an 80-85-point finish, 2026 could be the year they break the threshold into the Western Conference’s top eight.