What stood out about Utah Hockey Club’s first preseason game — a win over the St. Louis Blues

The Utah Hockey Club has recorded its first win in franchise history. Well, it's only the preseason so it's not officially their first win, but it's something for Utah hockey fans to be excited about.

For the first few game review s this year, I'm going to use a unique format. If the feedback is positive, I'll keep them going throughout the season. If you guys don't like them, I'll switch things up.

How this works Here's how it's going to go: This is a three-part geared toward three different audiences.

First, we'll have "Utah Hockey for Dummies" for all you new hockey fans. Welcome, by the way — we're glad you've taken an interest in the greatest sport in the world.

Next, we'll have a section titled "Utah Hockey for Moderate Fans," aimed at those who have a good base understanding of the sport.

Finally, we'll have "Utah Hockey for Nerds." That will be for those of you who, like me, think about nothing but hockey all day, every day.

Ideally, those who start in the first category will find themselves in the second tier by the end of the season and those who start in the second category make their way up to the third tier. And for those who start in the third tier, hopefully this helps to fuel your addiction.

Again, the survival of this format will be determined entirely by your feedback, so let me know in the comments of this or the comments section on "X" if you love it or hate it.

Utah Hockey for Dummies No matter how much hockey you've watched, you'll get a kick out of Utah Hockey Club's "first-ever goal." It was actually the St. Louis Blues' second goal of the game, but it was put into Utah's net by one of their own players.

When a team does something worthy of a penalty, the referee doesn't blow the whistle until the guilty team gains control of the puck. For this reason, the other team typically "pulls the goalie," replacing its goalie with another skater in an attempt to score before the other team gets the puck. It's usually a foolproof move because the other team can't touch the puck, so how are they going to score?

It didn't work for Utah this time, as an errant pass evaded a Utah stick and skipped all the way down into the gaping net.

This is an extremely rare occurrence, but coincidentally, the Arizona Coyotes, who turned into Utah HC this season, were the beneficiaries of a similar goal last season . What goes around comes around, I guess.

As you might imagine, the Blues' social media admins had fun with that one.

Utah also scored a unique goal: a penalty shot. A penalty shot is when the referee awards a player the chance to shoot one-on-one with the goalie, unbothered by any other opponents.

A player gets a penalty shot when he has a breakaway, but an opponent takes a penalty on him, ultimately preventing him from scoring. The referee determined that this was the case for Utah's Logan Cooley with a little more than a minute left in the game, and Cooley made the Blues pay.

The goal put Utah up 4-3, after which Michael Carcone scored an empty-netter to seal the deal for Utah's first win.

Dylan Guenther, fresh off an eight-year contract extension which he signed this week, scored Utah's third goal. He told the media after the game that he's excited to make history with the new franchise.

"We can say, when we're done playing, that we were the first team in Utah," he said. "It's cool for us, it's cool for the players, it's cool for the fans and it's going to grow hockey in the state, too."

Please remember that the preseason has very little relevance to the regular season, especially early on. Neither team used a full roster of NHL players — most of these guys will play in junior or minor leagues this year. This is simply a chance for the coaches and managers to see how certain guys perform in certain situations.

Utah Hockey for Moderate Fans Hockey fans who watched the game probably noticed the stylings of Kailer Yamamoto, a veteran forward with a try-out contract. In the first period especially, he drew some eyeballs with some nifty penalty killing and a missile off the crossbar. He also played on both the penalty kill and the power play — both of which he did quite well.

Yamamoto was a fixture on the penalty kill with both the Seattle Kraken and the Edmonton Oilers, and if he earns a spot on Utah's roster, we can probably expect him to do the same for them. He's not a big guy and his offensive production has really dropped off in recent years, so if he can carve out a role as a penalty-killing specialist, he might be able to significantly extend his time in the big leagues.

Karel Vejmelka was also elite for Utah. Goaltending is almost a different sport and I can't pretend to be an expert in it, but I do know two things: He kept the puck out of his own net at an above-average rate and he never seemed to be wildly out of position. All you can really ask for from a goaltender is that he gives you a chance to win, and that's exactly what "Vej" did.

Both teams gave both of their goalies the chance to play on Sunday. Here's the interesting thing: Six different goalie configurations allowed goals against. Both goalies from each team got scored on, and each team allowed an empty-net goal. The only way they could have possibly increased that number would be to use the emergency backup goalie.

Another observation before we move on to the advanced section: Utah is fast. In the third period alone, I counted five breakaways, two of which resulted in goals. Maybe that speaks more to St. Louis' defensive systems than it does to Utah's forwards, but Utah must have been doing something right either way.

Oh, and really quickly: Don't put too much stock into the preseason. These rosters are far from NHL-caliber.

Utah Hockey for Nerds If you've understood everything to this point, good on you — you probably have a pretty good understanding of the game and a certain level of familiarity with the team. I don't want to lose anyone with this section, but we're going to kick it up a notch.

First off, let's look at Utah's lines:

Utah's forward lines were pretty straightforward: If you played most of last season in the NHL or you were drafted in the first round this year, you're in the top six. If not, you're in the bottom six.

The top six produced four of Utah's five goals, which is a good sign for them because in the regular season, lots of those guys will be in the bottom half of the lineup and you need depth scoring. Depth scoring was not a problem for the Coyotes last year, as they had six different 20-goal scorers — and it shouldn't be a problem this year either.

The defense pairings also followed a clear formula: one veteran and one rookie per pairing. Head coach Andre Tourigny talked during training camp about his desire to stack his defensemen in such a way that each guy's skill set complements that of his partner, and that's what he did here.

Despite the fact that the preseason has very little bearing on the regular season, we do get a glimpse of Tourigny's thought process.

As true as that sentence is with line combinations, it's also true with systems.

Offensively, we already saw some set plays — most notably Kailer Yamamoto's rocket off the crossbar in the first period, which was set up by a faceoff play between himself and Michael Carcone. Defensively, we saw an aggressive system which didn't allow the Blues much offensive zone possession time.

Tourigny also allows his players — especially his young stars — a long leash to try things. Logan Cooley seemed to have the puck on a string all night, making risky plays that usually paid off. On one occasion in the third period, he had the puck in the corner to the left of his goalie. With the pressure of an incoming forechecker, he made a move and then threw a pass in front of his own net.

If you had coaches like mine growing up, you probably cringed watching that — it's a surefire way to score a permanent seat on the bench for most players. But Tourigny likes to let his guys be creative, and eventually that creativity paid off in the form of a game-winning goal off Cooley's stick.

"It's the first preseason game," Tourigny said after the game. "There's a lot of teaching, there's a lot of growth for our team. I like what I saw."

And once again, don't put too much stock into the preseason.

What's next? Utah HC returns home as they host the Los Angeles Kings at the Delta Center on Monday. The game starts at 7 p.m. and at the time of writing, Ticketmaster has tickets available for as low as $25.

Ironically, the Kings have already played several games at the Delta Center, even though Utah HC has not. They played in both the Frozen Fury and the Salt Lake Shootout, which were neutral-location preseason games intended to test the market for NHL interest. Ryan Smith's phrase of "Utah shows up" must be right because enough fans attended those games for Salt Lake City to become the permanent home of an NHL team.

Utah's regular season begins on Oct. 8 with a home game against the Chicago Blackhawks. Oh, and if you haven't heard already, it's apparently going to snow inside the arena that night.

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