For the first time ever, there are two major sports draft celebrations in Salt Lake City this year.
The Jazz held their annual draft party on Wednesday, when Utah used the 10th overall pick to select Colorado’s Cody Williams and the No. 29 pick on USC’s Isaiah Collier. On Friday, the Utah Hockey Club will make the franchise’s first-ever draft pick during the first round of the 2024 NHL draft in Las Vegas.
Basketball fans here know — or at least think they know — the NBA draft.
One of my lifelong friends remembers attending a draft event in 1985, where at least one fan loudly implored the Jazz to select St. Johns center Bill Wennington. The team didn’t listen and instead went with some power forward from Louisiana Tech who, unlike Wennington, never won an NBA championship. I bet that guy’s still mad. The previous year, the crowd at the Salt Palace famously booed the team’s selection of an unknown point guard from a school called Gonzaga.
Note: I came away from the 2000 draft convinced DeShawn Stevenson would be a superstar.
But the NHL draft? This is all so new (and sudden) for Utah’s sports fans — including Deseret’s director of content promotion, Stevi Ginolfi, who had a few questions for me before I left town for the on-site draft event at The Sphere in Las Vegas.
NHL draft quick facts
Let’s start with some basics.
- Draft format: 7 rounds over two days
- Venue: The Sphere in Las Vegas
- Sponsor: Upper Deck
- Watch: Round 1, Friday, June 28, 5 p.m. MDT (ESPN, ESPN+); Rounds 2-7, Saturday, June 29, 9:30 a.m. MDT (ESPN+, NHL Network)
- Utah Hockey Club picks: Round 1 (No. 6 overall), Round 2 (Nos. 38, 49 and 65); Round 3 (Nos. 71, 89 and 96); Round 4 (Nos. 98 and 103); Round 5 (No. 135); Round 6 (Nos. 167 and 190); and Round 7 (199)
OK, back to Stevi — a very knowledgable sports fan when it comes to football and basketball, but not too familiar with hockey.
Here’s my best attempt to answer her questions.
We want to care. What should we care about?
Here are three storylines to watch:
The Sphere: For years, the NBA and NFL drafts have been popular televised events and have changed to reach even more audience. Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League have tried to catch up recently. The MLB and NHL, however, have expansive minor league systems where most of these players spend the majority of their time, as my colleague Trent Wood pointed out, whereas NFL and NBA teams are often filling immediate needs. College baseball and college hockey aren’t nearly as popular as college football and college basketball (though the College World Series and Frozen Four are well worth your time) so there is little familiarity with the prospects. Plus, the NHL draft is very international. NHL mock drafts have projected first rounders from Russia, Norway, Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic.
So give the NHL credit for venue choice. Holding the draft at The Sphere immediately elevates the event. In addition to what the enhanced technology — which includes the world’s highest resolution LED screen — will provide for the live audience and broadcast, the NHL announced that “key moments” from the draft will be shown on the “exosphere” — the world’s largest LED screen on the exterior of the venue. This year’s NHL draft will be the first-ever live television event broadcast from The Sphere. So the NHL is sure to capture some attention outside the venue.
“Working with the NHL to host the venue’s first-ever live broadcast event for a major sports league is an important milestone in Sphere’s inaugural year,” said Joel Fisher, executive vice president of marquee events and operations for MSG Entertainment, in a news release. “We look forward to creating an unforgettable Draft experience with the NHL for everyone watching in Las Vegas and around the world via the incredible content that will be displayed both inside the venue and on the Exosphere.”
“It’s an exciting time. It’s a huge venue this year. Everyone’s looking forward to it,” Utah general manager Bill Armstrong said earlier this week. “It’s a great thing for the league. It’s a great thing for the players. And it surely gets you excited about the draft.”
A special place in history: The Utah Hockey Club’s history is a blank slate. The transfer of the players and front office personnel from the Arizona Coyotes to Ryan and Ashley Smith did not include the team’s history, which spans from 1972 in Winnipeg to the move to Arizona in 1996 to the franchise transfer announced in April. (Arizona retains that history while the franchise remains dormant with the option to reactivate within five years.) So while the Utah Jazz can claim Pete Maravich as one of their own, even though most of his time was with New Orleans, Utah has no claim on the Jets/Coyotes record books. When Utah announces its sixth-overall selection, that player will go down in history as the franchise’s first-ever draft selection.
Thirteen picks: Utah’s stockpile of selections will keep the team highly relevant throughout the draft in this and coming years — kind of like the Jazz following the trades of Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert. As my colleague Joe Coles explained, Armstrong amassed the picks after the NHL’s salary cap went flat following the COVID-19 pandemic and teams were looking to unload bad contracts, which Arizona was able to absorb.
“I don’t know if it’ll ever be done again in the National Hockey League to acquire that amount of picks in that short of time,” Armstrong said. “I think we got some puck luck on that one, but there was some strategic planning and we executed the plan. So a little bit of credit on our side, but a little bit of timing and luck too.”
Which positions should we care about?
There’s not an easy equivalence, but a hockey team’s defensemen and goalie are similar to a frontcourt in basketball. And tall, strong defenders are always a plus.
If there is a glamour position, it’s probably center. Some of the league’s brightest stars — Connor McDavid, Nathan McKinnon, Auston Matthews, Sidney Crosby, Leon Draisaitl and Aleksander Barkov — play the position.
During a draft preview with the media, Armstrong talked about a core that each team needs and how Florida, which recently hoisted the Stanley Cup, had that in place for years — a No. 1 goaltender, a No. 1 center and a No. 1 defensemen.
“Their Big 3 were in place, and you’re not winning without your Big 3,” Armstrong said.
Will any of these draft picks play next year?
It’s unlikely.
Not everyone is Connor Bedard, a generational talent selected No. 1 overall last year who started the season in Chicago. The No. 2 and 3 overall picks (Leo Carlsson of Anaheim and Adam Fantilli of Columbus) also played in the NHL in 2023-24. But most draftees go through development in college, the minors or international leagues.
And that seems to be Armstrong’s philosophy.
“Sometimes you can walk away with someone that high and they can jump right into your lineup and play. But we’re at the point right now where we really want to develop our players. Not to say that they won’t have an opportunity to make our team in camp, but for the most part, what you’re seeing there is going to be an impact player at some point of time in there career, but it takes them a little bit of time and development.”
“They learn a lot of lessons at the (American Hockey League) level,” Armstrong said. “If we do it right, the majority of our draft picks will go through the minors and come up. And that way when they come up, they’ll be extra ready. And that’s important to us. Not to say that the sixth overall pick can’t play in the National Hockey League for us, but it’s highly unlikely next year.”
What’s the age range of the players in the draft?
Very young. All eligible players will need to be age 18 by Sept. 15. North American players also need to be younger than age 20 by Dec. 31. Non-North American players who haven’t been drafted are eligible if they are between ages 18-21.
Do hockey teams have a dance team or a cheer team?
Note: This isn’t draft-related. But Stevi is a former BYU cheerleader, so we’ll allow it.
I’m not entirely sure how to answer this one. It’s probably really hard to dance on ice skates, and most of the hockey I watch is on TV, where they tend to favor showing commercials rather than what’s happening on the ice during breaks.
I do know that Las Vegas has quite the pregame show, and at the very least, skaters will come onto the ice carrying team flags. As for mascots, there are a lot of great mascots in the NHL. The best is Iceburgh from Pittsburgh. The worst is Gritty from Philadelphia.