Utah Hockey Club inaugural season official roster breakdown

The Utah Hockey Club started training today with 67 skaters. Still, they were forced to make final cuts and reduce that to a 23-man roster for tonight's season opener against the Chicago Blackhawks.

As we gear up for the Utah Hockey Club's first home game in franchise history at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, it's a moment to be proud of. The anticipation around this team has been building for months, and the community's involvement, thanks to the Smith family's efforts, has been a key factor in shaping this historic moment.

It feels surreal to say this finally, but with the Utah Hockey Club set to take the ice for the first official time tonight, let's look at the final roster and how it will be set up tonight.

Utah Hockey Club inaugural season opening night roster

Clayton Keller, Barrett Hayton, and Nick Schmaltz reportedly took reps on Monday at practice on Utah's 'first line'. This group played 244 minutes together and had a 55% goal share when on the ice together, well at five-on-five (via MoneyPuck). This is the perfect combination of guys; Hayton is your responsible defensive centre with some offensive upside, and Keller is your highly skilled playmaking goal scorer playing opposite Nick Schmaltz, who loves to make plays in the gritty areas of the ice and in front of the net.

The second line is where head coach Andre Tourigny plays around. The staples on this line will be Logan Cooley and Dylan Guenther, but you could see Tourigny play around with who will be on the left wing. Based on Monday's practice, Jack McBain will start the season on the second line with these two. McBain makes perfect sense on this line; he will play the power forward role and be the first one on the forecheck, causing havoc in the offensive end to get the puck back to the playmakers in Guenther and Cooley.

The third line is where coach Andre Tourigny will have a lot of room to play around; Matias Maccelli and Lawson Crouse will likely be the consistent two on this line when the team is fully healthy. Josh Doan may be getting the nod at center to start the season, with Nick Bjudstad starting the year injured. When the injury inevitably worsens, Utah will have Kailer Yamamoto, who can fill in on this line and a few others down on the fourth line could slide up and fill a role on this third line.

The depth of this team will allow Tourigny to experiment with who starts based on matchups. On opening night, a combination of rugged, gritty players will likely set the tone with energy and physicality. Michael Carcone, Kevin Stenlund, and Liam O'Brien will likely play the least number of minutes of the forward group on opening night.

Still, I wouldn't be shocked if they were the most noticeable. O'Brien will likely get the crowd going early by finding someone to drop the gloves with and show the Utah fans who will protect these young stars. Stenlund is a 6'5" monster, and Carcone is lightning-quick and loves to throw the body around. This line will be tough to play against. Still, you could also see a mix of Yamamoto and possibly Josh Doan when Bjudstad returns or even Alex Kerfoot, who has something ailing him to start the year.

John Marino's starting the year on injured reserve is the most significant loss for this team at the moment. Still, Mikhail Sergachev and Sean Durzi will make a great one-two-punch top pairing. Both are great puck movers and will be able to get the puck into the forwards' hands and make plays offensively, which is a huge asset with the bulk of the minutes they will be playing.

With Marino unavailable to start the year, the second pairing will be Ian Cole and Vladislav Kolyachonok. Cole was brought in to be a shutdown guy. Kolyachonok had a tremendous short stint with the Coyotes last year and was impressive during the preseason this year.

The third pairing will be Juuso Valimaki, then likely a combination of Michael Kesselring and Robert Bortuzzo, depending on matchups. Kesselring has some offensive talent but has some growing to do before he can truly be a reliable full-time NHL defenseman. Bortuzzo is a big body that would be great to have on the penalty kill at times and to match up with some of the bigger rosters in the NHL.

The goaltending is going to be this team's X-Factor. Last year, Connor Ingram and Karel Vejmelka were quite inconsistent. Still, with a better blueline in front of them this year, I expect more consistency, especially from Ingram, who finished tied for the league lead in shutouts this season.

With this much depth throughout the lineup and lots of cap space to play with at the deadline, I love the Utah Hockey Club's chances of making the playoffs in their inaugural season.