Logan Cooley: The Future of Utah Hockey

Hello fans and welcome. It's official, the Arizona Coyotes have relocated to Utah, and while the season is over, the fun is about to begin. I'm Brandon, and alongside my co-hosts Dustin and Ryan, we will bring you inside the team, giving you all the news, highlights, and an in-depth analysis on everything the NHL in Utah has to offer. Welcome to another episode of The Two-Line Pass.

And welcome in fans, another episode of the Two Line Pass podcast with you as always, Brandon here with Ryan and Dustin, ready to bring you another player profile. And we've already talked about the face of the franchise in Clayton Keller. And today we're going to talk about potentially the future of the franchise and Logan Cooley. Logan Cooley is a young, extremely talented center that we have the privilege to watch this upcoming season with the Utah hockey team.

I'm very excited to break down his game, discuss what we like about him, what we think he can improve on, and where we think he's headed in the future. And spoiler alert, there's a lot to be excited about. Brian, Dustin, are you ready to talk about some Logan Cooley today?

I am set. Let's go. I'm very excited. If there's anybody that new fans will want to pay attention to, it's probably going to be him because he's going to give you the most flash and he's going to be the highlights you're going to be seeing a lot of. You will without a doubt be hearing his name a lot throughout the season. We're going to be talking about him a lot, but let's throw it over to Dustin, where he came from, how he ended up in Utah.

Dustin, take it away. You know, with the other players that we've profiled so far, they had a little bit of a career to talk about. This young man is 20 years old, so there's not much. He was born in 2004, an obvious year of greatness in the state of Utah. So there's obvious ties to greatness and the state that he's about to play hockey in. He was drafted third overall in the 2022 NHL draft. After the draft, he would announce that he would return to college to play one more season for Minnesota.

As some NHL draft picks do, they either go to the minors. They play another league in another year in college. He went to the training camp and he impressed Arizona so much that he wound up signing a three-year contract and made the opening day roster. So, yeah, just straight out of the draft to making the opening day roster as what at that point he would have been a 18, 19 year old kid.

Very impressive, very young. If you're like me, a jazz fan, kind of sort of transitioning over to learning about hockey. Logan Cooley is the Utah Hockey Club equivalent of Keontae George of the Utah Jazz. as like a rookie who's like, he's not one of the best players on the team, but he's shown a lot of flash. He's shown a lot of promise. And there's a lot of belief that he can be like a key piece that you can develop around and into your team.

So he's very young and he's Keontae George of the Utah hockey club, basically. Yeah. Thank you, Dustin. And like you said, we've got him for a couple of years, so he's on his entry level contract for another two years. So we will be seeing a lot of him again, barring any ridiculous trade that, and I think there's so much value in Logan Cooley.

I don't think he's even going to be entertained in any potential trade, but we've got him for a couple of years barring that. And Ryan, you've got some pros and cons. You've got some things you like about him and some things you want to see improved upon. Let's break them down. So I'm going to give the new coming fans five pros, and these are the five things that are are, in my opinion, the reason he was selected with the third overall pick by the Coyotes.

Number one, and probably his most important skill, is he is a very creative player on the ice. His passing is some of the best I've seen out of a kid his age. If you watch any of his games, you'll notice it immediately. He's not doing tape to tape necessarily, but he's getting it to guys in transition so they're skating into the pass or he's using a lot of I've seen him use other players as he'll bounce it off skates to try to get to another guy.

Other than Sidney Crosby, he's the only player I've ever seen try to take a puck behind the net and then bounce it off the boards behind him to a trailing player in front of the net. It's hard to explain, but if you guys look up Crosby highlights, you'll see the play I'm talking about. But Cooley does it a lot. He modeled his game, I think, a lot after Crosby. But another pro about him is spacing on the ice.

He is very good at knowing where everyone is on the ice and where he needs to be if he needs to back somebody up or if he needs to go kind of move out of the way and let some open ice get taken by his team the third one is he's got some of the silkiest hands i've seen like he for a 20 year old kid he can control the puck he will dangle through feet he is made at 20 years old He's made some good NHL defensemen look pretty dumb, and you don't get that a lot.

20-year-old kids usually aren't coming into the NHL every year. We get, what, two, three guys about that age coming in every year, and usually it's like, hey, they did all right. Cooley played all 82 games with 20 goals. That's not a bad rookie season in the NHL, playing for a less than good Arizona Coyotes team at the time.

And then my favorite pro about him is his transitioning with the puck into the offensive zone from the neutral zone or taking it from the defensive zone and being the one to lead us into the offensive zone without the dump and chase necessarily. And if you guys have watched a lot of the new NHL games, teams. That's kind of how the game is evolving into the dump and chase. Sure. Florida used the dump and chase to win, but not every team can do that.

There's a lot more skilled guys than there are rough and tumble guys left in the league. So the dump and chase doesn't work, but Logan Cooley plays perfectly into that because he can control the puck.

He's one of the fastest kids out there. Like he is very, very quick and he could control the puck and with his spacing and And the way he can control the puck better, he's going to be great coming into this system if the team can build the system around that kind of style, if that's what they're going to go for.

And I think with Cooley, that's the style you have to go for, especially with Clayton Keller as well on that top line. And guys, he's 20 years old. He's only going to get better. He can only improve from this.

And speaking of things he could improve on his most i think the biggest con is he is undersized and not just in like high like 510 is not big for a top line center but he just is not a big presence on me he's fast sure but he is easily kind of tossed around it's not necessarily the strongest kind of guy and his posture is a little weird i don't know if you guys have noticed that but he does this thing where Crosby did it a lot too,

where they put themselves in vulnerable positions a lot, where they'll be reaching for pucks to try to like make passes and make things like that, or the way they can try to like, they'll try to dangle with people. They get sometimes in a position being small, all it to look at Crosby, all it takes is one or two dudes to catch you in a spot and you're done. You know what I mean? You can have your career or it can be very dangerous.

So and being undersized I think that I think if he can work On that and work on the posture It won't be as big of a problem. And then the other basic con that I had was he gets a little too cocky. Oh, not cocky, I guess. Overconfident is a better way to do it, where he's trying to dangle, or not veteran, but hardened NHL players, real grown men. He's trying to dangle them like he could and just kind of like dance around the kids in college and at the world juniors.

And the grown men in the NHL kind of don't let that happen. But like he gets it's very easy just to push him off a puck. But again, 20 years old, he can own like he's going to get better. He's he's going to get stronger and faster. But just that's really his only down thing is being undersized. And he's not very strong. I don't know if he's necessarily true, but his offensive output and offensive potential outweigh any con he has.

Like i think as the future of the franchise randon was right about that like there's there's no way we can move on from him in any kind of capacity to try to better this team he's not somebody we need to loot like use these three years to convince him this is where he needs to be give him more pieces give him you know a couple extra things and get a system going where we can play a winning brand of hockey and we are like logan cooley will lead us like he's i think he's

got all the potential to be a top 10 nhl player at some point if all things pan out and he worked you know what i mean i i think he's great and i think fans are gonna fall in love with him and he's funny like watch some of his interviews he's a good kid like he's got a good heart he played in the baby penguins system which for those of you who don't know crosby or cindy crosby a pittsburgh Penguins legend.

He started a youth program in the inner cities of Pittsburgh and stuff to get hockey equipment to kids who couldn't afford it. And Logan Cooley got to benefit from that program. And now look at him in the NHL. If I'm not mistaken, he's one of the first Pittsburgh natives to be drafted in the first round, or that high, at least, in the first round. I think he's the highest drafted Pittsburgh native.

So that's pretty fantastic. And if you're looking for idols, I mean, even if you're new to the sport of hockey, you have surely heard of Sidney Crosby. I mean, he was the face of the league for many, many years. And obviously, right now, you're seeing a kind of a shift to Connor McDavid. But Sidney Crosby is one of the greatest hockey players to ever play the game. So if you're looking for an idol and somebody to grow up looking at, Logan Cooley picked a good role model to base his game off of.

And Ryan, I want to piggyback on a couple of things you said. First, his speed is incredible. He's one of the fastest on the team. You're going to immediately notice that about Logan Cooley. And I'm hoping what we're seeing over the next few years is a a shift to a more speed based finesse style game away from the physical physicality.

And I think what you're going to see is you're going to see us, you see this kind of in the minor leagues where you look at speed, try to overcome a physical game. And in the minor leagues, there's mixed results. I think I've seen a lot of the physical game play factor, but that's when you're. With people maybe not as well conditioned at the NHL level and things.

So those checks wear them down and their game schedule in the minor leagues, you're thinking, you know, back to back, sometimes three games in four nights type things. So you just don't see that in the NHL all that often.

And, and so the, that speed skill style can very well be the future of the NHL. We're moving away from a physical. So the fact that he's not a 6'3", 205, you know, physical guy might not matter because he's that fast and that skilled. Right now he's playing in the second line with Dylan Gunther, who's another fantastically skilled young player. It's going to be exciting to watch those two play if we can keep both of them for long term. But they have a very, very good chemistry. industry.

Dylan came, well, where Logan Cooley played all year for Arizona. Dylan Gunther came in the back half of the season and really found his stride paired alongside Logan Cooley. Logan Cooley also plays on the power play with Get Some Time With Nick Schmaltz and Clayton Keller, does phenomenal work on the power play.

He's also a tremendous penalty killer and has earned his way into the penalty killing rotation so he's kind of got a little more defensive acumen than we've kind of given a few of his peers credit for he plays a a more defensive offensive though i think he's going to truly shine offensively he does have that that defensive ability or at least he has shown flashes of that keys he's gotta stay healthy 100 just like every other player like Like,

I just do not want to see him sideline one player that I think he has a... The element to be a, if we're looking for comparisons, is Stephen Stamkos out of Tampa Bay, and Stephen Stamkos had a lot of injury problems in the, especially the early part of his career, but then perennial became a, a easily a point per game center and approaching into the a hundred points.

Obviously Logan Cooley didn't get to the a hundred plus rookie season, but 44 points and his rookie season is not bad, playing for a not good team. His potential is off the charts. He truly does have superstar potential. He's going to take over.

Seeing, playing with Clayton Keller as Clayton Keller evolves into that leader who's been there, who's been through it, who's been that all-star presence and taking Logan Cooley under his wing to the point where, guys, hopefully soon, I don't know if it's next season, But two seasons from now, are we talking about Logan Cooley as that first line center that maybe this team does not definitively have yet?

I think he will maybe need one more year, but towards the end of next season, if he starts to go up to that first line, that would be great. But I think the plan is to make Logan Cooley the absolute first line center. But for as long as he's playing with those second line guys, he's going to be great. He's going to continue to make them better and continue to develop his own skills and be this future. And the future is bright, right?

The future is bright. We may not have a championship team right now. We may not win the Stanley Cup this first season. and maybe not even make the playoffs. But there is a very realistic world where we do make the playoffs. And some of these young guys, some of these young guys coming in really start to develop. And if you get him locked in long term, Logan Cooley is going to be one of those guys that you just want to watch year in, year out.

And I feel like there's no way that Utah moves away from him. He's just, in my opinion, he's shown to be that good.

Unless you get a bona fide already ready to win the cup superstar you don't move away from him and even if you do this team is not really in a win now mode that i think you continue to develop and and logan cooley is going to be an exciting guy to to continue to develop now you mentioned like whether or not utah is in a win now mode we've talked about some of the pieces that they have with like cooley. Keller Schmaltz, a decent, probably upper half of the league goalie.

How good do you think they need to be in free agency with the defensemen that they sign to be able to sort of shift to, okay, maybe now they are going to be a win now team as opposed to let's build towards the next two or three years? I would say that I think for we have to be aggressive in free agency, but not necessarily signing free agent defense, because I don't even think there are very many, at least not big name guys and not to be the, you know, this guy.

But I don't see Chris Tanev or the dude from Vancouver, the one dude I'm at, Zdorov. I can't see either one of them being persuaded to take a pay cut to come anchor a new Utah or blue line. But I think we can go out and acquire some defenseman or something that's going to get us there in a year or two.

Maybe not get that top guy but we can get a couple smaller pieces and we have the money to spend so it's not like we need to be cheap about it but i think we need to be more aggressive but at the same time maybe not necessarily find a bona fide one two but find guys who in maybe a year or maybe you know next season are gonna be a one or a two they're just not quite there yet who are easier to move on from. Yeah. And I'm wondering, I've been looking at the, we're talking cure free agents.

I don't think there's enough to just go start swooping up guys off of, you know, off a free agency. It's going to require some finessing and some trades. It was floated that, that Mitch Marner may be coming to Utah. I think a lot of the, the, the, the truth of that have been stamped out, but, but Hey, let's say he did. Then that's a guy, that's a winger that if Logan Cooley is playing with him, that that elevates Logan Cooley's game, right?

Is Mitch Marner or conversely, if Mitch Marner takes over at the say the wing and he plays with Kate and Keller that puts Nick Schmaltz now down at the, at the second line, which just, if Nick Schmaltz and Logan Cooley are playing together, that's going to be great. And so it's looking at who Who in free agency, who in draft can make this team better, make the players better? And if you're looking to draft, I think you want to start drafting offensive defensemen.

Just however there's, I don't know necessarily that there's enough ready now guys in this year's draft. I don't outside of the number one overall pick in Celebrity. I don't know if there's a bona fide, like absolutely undisputedly starts now. And I don't think that whoever Utah drafts is going to be in a position to start now. However, we do have two very talented defensemen who may be ready this season. We'll see.

And it's just a matter of if those defensemen can compliment and give our top line guys enough confidence. But with Cooley's ability to play offense and defense, I think he's going to really think he's going to really fit in nicely with either some veteran defenseman presence that we get or our rookies come in and go that route.

And, you know, talking about free agency, I was looking around and trying to find, obviously there's only one season, not a tremendous body of work to look at when we're breaking down Logan Cooley other than his potential. And so I was looking at some of the other top centers in the league and kind of comparing where Logan Cooley's rookie season did compared to them. And obviously you have your generational type talents of Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid who, you know, 100 points out the gate.

That's not Logan Cooley. There's a lot of other very, very good, very talented names that had a very similar start.

And one of them is is actually Leon Dreisaitl is I think one of the comparisons I want to make in terms of he gets drafted right he goes to Edmonton goes back to the minors comes back he has 51 points in his basically his second year he played 37 games in his first one but then 51 points and then immediately jumps to the 70s and then now perennial 100 points per season And same kind of thing, Nathan McKinnon, who 140 points last season.

I mean, absolutely. Nathan McKinnon is absolutely, without a doubt, one of the most productive centers. But it takes him a while to get there. Obviously, injuries play a factor, but it's not until his fifth season that he gets above 90 points. So looking at that, it's like, you know, Logan Cooley does not need to immediately go to 100 points next season for him to be still a superstar and the future.

Also, we talked about his size. Another guy who you want to see him kind of model his game after is Braden Point from From Tampa Bay, I've obviously talked about Stephen Stamkos. Braden Point's another 5'10", 178. So basically identical in size of Logan Cooley. He 68 games, 40 points. So he played a few less games his rookie season, but then immediately goes 66-92 his next two seasons. So and then Braden Point, obviously, his last two seasons above 90 points.

And he's Braden Point's one of those guys where you're just like, yep, that's Braden point, he's going to get your future thing. So there's a lot of excitement and a lot of comparisons to be made for Logan Cooley to be that type of top 10 center in the league. That's his future. If he stays healthy and if he continues to grow, he is a superstar.

And Dustin, while there's not a lot to look at, obviously just as one season, you do have a couple of things you did want to go over in terms of his his statistics and break it down for us yeah so i one thing that i that i like playing with that you you guys introduced me to when we started doing these player profiles is the nhl edge website which is a really cool breakdown of everything about how fast these kids skate how much they skate

we've we've talked about it a couple of times one thing that really jumped out to me is that his top shot speed is really really low it's like the bottom half of the league. But what also in sort of hand in hand that jumped out off the page to me is that his shooting percentage is higher than most.

He's in almost like the 80th percentile of the league, which to me just screams that he's able to sort of place his shots better than somebody who's just like their top shot speed is so high that they're just trying to sort of brute force their way past the goalie. Whereas he, he sees where the window is and puts it there nicely. Is that something that I'm just sort of reading in the numbers too much? Or is that a real thing that, that the numbers are, are sort of showing me?

No, I don't think you're, I don't think you're way off base on that one. I think the, we kind of discussed it with, with Schmaltz and Clayton Keller too, in terms of, of shot speed. And they're more of the finesse type type guys who are going to give you more of that sniper type thing instead of that very, very hard, hard shooting. And and I wonder if it's just the nature of maybe forwards just don't need it anymore.

And you're looking at those those big slapshots, the 90 mile an hour plus one are almost always going to come from defensemen now. And it, but I'll tell you, looking at some of those one timers across the, in the slot, they look a lot harder than they are. They don't clock in as fast, but man, those quick one timers in the slaughter, just, I think the, maybe the future of the, the NHL, but if you more importantly than how fast you can shoot down low like that is how accurate you are.

And Logan Cooley is one of the more accurate ones. And so, yeah, we'll, we'll see as he continues. I think naturally as he continues to build in terms of his strength, which is going to come with age, we'll see that come up. But I think accuracy over power is something that you get out of Logan Cooley. And guys, do you guys have any final thoughts you want to wrap up? Anything you want to leave the listeners with when we're talking about Logan Cooley?

Just the excitement of a good, very talented, very high potential third overall draft pick. Buy your Logan Cooley stocks now. Get your jerseys. As soon as they drop, he's going to be him. And I will add a sort of one more feather to the cap of Logan Cooley.

If you've been watching the NHL for the past decade, decade and a half, almost two decades, well, not quite two decades, but like decade, decade and a half, there's been a very heated battle like back and forth between NHL fans, like in the same line as like the Bloods versus the Crips, the Capulets versus the Montagues.

Use there is the sydney crosby's versus the alex alex ovechkins and tip of the cap to logan cooley despite the fact that he was born and raised in pittsburgh and played in the the little penguins program like you guys mentioned grew up a washington capitals fan rooting for alex of alex ovechkins so props to logan cooley for bucking the trend it is in his home state and choosing the right side of that argument, of that debate.

Everybody who knows me knows I'm no fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins and no fan of Sidney Crosby. I'll admit that he's one of the greatest to ever play the game, but I do not have to like him. Greatness does not mean that I have to like him, and I do not like the Penguins. I wouldn't mind us getting Gnetzel from down south who played with Pittsburgh, but yeah, I never really liked the Pittsburgh Penguins, and so Logan Cooley, you chose the right way. The grade eight was definitely the way to go.

He might have been an Ovechkin fan, but he definitely plays more like Crosby. And that's probably due to the fact that he wasn't built in a Soviet Union lab like Alex Ovechkin was. He's a little undersized if we're comparing him, but that's Logan Cooley, man. Fast, skilled, and a very, very high ceiling, guys. You're going to love watching him. He's going to play a lot next season, and I hope you have fun watching him. And I hope you've enjoyed this breakdown of Logan Cooley and his game.

And thanks so much for listening to another episode of The Two Line Pass, and we'll catch you next time. Thank you for listening to another episode of The Two Line Pass podcast. Please follow us on Twitter at The Two Line Pass. You can follow Dustin at Highlights Ute. You can follow Randon at TLPRandon and Ryan at KarnsRyan0420. During the off-season, new episodes of the podcast drop every Wednesday with bonus episodes throughout.

And during the season, we will have our weekly show plus game day episodes so you don't miss a minute of the action.