Do The Utah Hockey Club Lack Veterans?

The newly founded Utah Hockey Club could find themselves in the Stanley Cup Playoffs as early as this year, but there is one big obstacle within their team, experience. Since moving from Arizona to Utah, the newest team in the NHL are showing early signs of promise in the central division, starting 4-4-2 in their first 10 games, and look to continue to capitalise on a rather poor central division this season. With a new front office, and a complete relocation and makeover, the team have adapted a rapid development type model for the team in their first season in the NHL, but are they in danger of progressing too quickly? It's no question that the UHC are still going through the motions of a rebuild phase, but young prospects such as Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley are starting to find themselves in the starting lineup, almost every game, and giving great contribution to the team so far. The UHC are filled with young prospects who they picked up in the last 5 years, and now are starting to bring many into the team to push and improve on previous seasons. But despite having an exceptional young core to work with, the one key aspect they are missing is veterans, and experience on this extremely young team. Differently to teams such as Chicago and San Jose, the UHC are taking the quick approach to settle their young prospects into NHL life as quickly as possible, whereas teams such as Chicago who are in a similar situation as Utah are building a team of experienced veterans around their young stars, as a safety net for the youngsters, and to keep the team at an experienced NHL level. There's no doubt, the UHC will be in the playoffs within a few years with big teams such as the Colorado Avalanche fading in the central division freeing up space for teams such as Utah to move into playoff spots, but the clear lack of older players in the team may pose as a very big obstacle for Utah, and players with playoff experience often have a massive advantage for teams playing in the playoffs. With only two players being over the age of 30 on the Utah Hockey Club roster, and over 10 elite level 18 year old prospects making their way into the roster, the absence of those more experienced players with playoff games under their belt, may cause issues for Utah had they make the playoffs, and could potentially damage a successful inaugural season for the Utah Hockey Club.