After 17 seasons in the NHL, two Stanley Cups, and playing for eight different teams, Ian Cole is reaching the twilight of his hockey career. He’s won big, scored some massive goals, and has had a long career in the NHL. At 35 years old, he could retire and no one would blame him. However, after a playoff run with the Vancouver Canucks, he’s decided to take his talents to the young Utah Hockey Club, citing the potential of the team as the main reason why he signed.
Young Talent Is Appealing
Last season with the Canucks, Cole played the Arizona Coyotes three times in what would be their final season in franchise history. Although his team took down the Coyotes two of those times, the defenseman guarded talent like Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, and Dylan Guenther. He saw the elite young talent they had and knew the team was on the way up.
“When I look at the roster, I look at the potential that I think it has,” Cole said. “It’s a team that lost 14 games in a row last year down in Arizona. Let’s say you go .500 in those 14 games though. You’re at least within reach of one of the playoff spots. It’s a team that has a lot of potential and it’s a team that when I play against that team, you keep to yourself and say this is actually a really good team. It’s a team that can be very good in the future.”
It’s worth mentioning the 14-game losing skid the Coyotes went on was amid Alex Meruelo and Gary Bettman beginning discussions to relocate the team’s hockey operations to Salt Lake City. Now, there’s no more news like that, and Utah’s roster has no outside noise to keep them from reaching their full greatness.
Cole has played with a handful of great players. Last season with the Canucks, he played with a young core that featured Quinn Hughes, Elias Pettersson, JT Miller, Thatcher Demko, and Brock Boeser who made their first impact in the playoffs. With the Tampa Bay Lightning, he played with a Stanley Cup-winning core of Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Brayden Point who had won back-to-back Cups and had been to three straight Stanley Cup Finals upon Cole’s arrival. He sees a bit of both of those teams in Utah.
Related: John Marino Excited to Help Utah Win Early
“I have been fortunate today to have been on a wide array of teams in terms of very successful and veteran-heavy teams like Tampa, and then teams that are very young and still finding their way like Vancouver last year,” Cole said….
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Hockey Writers…