Utah could have several issues in 2026, but this position could always use more depth... And that position would be the defenseman position. Utah, unless something changes between now and October, will roll out with a defenseman corps that has both veterans and youngsters.
Notably, the team will look to add Dimtri Simashev as a permanent defenseman to the team, and they also add Andrew Peeke, who can at times be valuable. But of all positions that Utah has, it does seem like the only position that Utah may seek to address if they were shopping at the trade deadline would be the defenseman position.
Is this position a potential weakness of Utahs?
Utah on the offense is really good to go. They already had a nice amount of wingers before they added Anders Lee and Vincent Trocheck, with Trocheck apparently moving from center to winger. When it comes to the center position, well Utah has two stars in Logan Cooley and Nick Schmaltz, plus they kept Barrett Hayton and if they need to, Trocheck is a center, and a great one at that.
With that being said, the other positions that Utah has is the goalie room and the defenseman. The goalie room returns Karel Vejmelka, who was 38-20-3 last season. His stats weren't great as it is well known, but he seems like the easy starter and an decrease in production isn't exactly expected, especially with the 23-year-old Sebastian Cossa coming in to help. Cossa could even start with his potential.
That leaves the defenseman. Utah has three stars, Mikhail Sergachev, John Marino, and MacKenzie Weegar. But the depth did take a little bit of a hit with some veterans departing including the only played to player all 164 games so far in Utah, Ian Cole. This means Utah will try to hinge a lot of it's hopes on Simashev and other young guys.
If there were to be struggles from Simashev or someone else, this could easily lead to Utah acquiring some depth at the deadline and maybe even going all in to acquire another star defenseman. For now though, it does seem like the experience and the overall position looks good though, so no worries- at least not yet.
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