The Utah Hockey Club continues to add on defense. They’re bringing in veteran Ian Cole on a one-year, $3.1MM contract, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
Later, TSN’s Darren Dreger reported Utah is adding center Kevin Stenlund on a two-year deal worth $2MM per season. Dreger adds they’re signing defenseman Kevin Connauton to a two-year, two-way deal worth $775K.
Utah marks Cole’s sixth team in the last five years. The 35-year-old defenseman spent last season on a one-year pact with the Canucks, where he served as a serviceable bottom-four shutdown blue-liner. In 78 regular-season appearances, he had 11 points and a +10 rating while averaging 18:41 per game. While his possession metrics were strong for his difficult defensive usage, he had some difficult moments in the postseason and was viewed as a more unlikely candidate to re-sign in Vancouver than names like Filip Hronek and Tyler Myers.
In Utah’s first year, Cole projects to slide into a bottom-pairing role on the left side behind Mikhail Sergachev and Juuso Välimäki, although he can play the right side if necessary. He’ll be relied on heavily to swallow penalty kill minutes and help absorb the loss of top PKers Travis Dermott and J.J. Moser, who aren’t returning after spending last season with the Coyotes.
Stenlund, meanwhile, earns the biggest payday of his life after centering the Panthers’ fourth line in their run to the 2024 Stanley Cup. After spending a few seasons bouncing between the NHL and AHL, he cemented a full-time roster spot in Florida this season and missed just one regular-season game, recording a career-high 11 goals and 15 points in the process. Like Cole, he won’t have much of an impact offensively but should work alongside existing forwards Nick Bjugstad, Lawson Crouse and Alexander Kerfoot as Utah’s top-used forwards shorthanded.
Connauton, meanwhile, is slated for minor-league minutes with the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners. The 6’2″, 205-lb defender spent last season with the Ontario Reign while under contract with the Kings, serving as an alternate captain and logging 18 points and a +18 rating in 61 games. He previously played a pair of games for Tucson while a member of the Coyotes organization in the 2016-17 campaign, posting a goal and two assists. The 34-year-old brings 360 games of NHL experience across 10 seasons should his services be needed in Salt Lake.