Utah Hockey Club officially joins NHL, unveils uniforms, logos | NHL.com

Ryan and Ashley Smith, who purchased the contracts of Arizona Coyotes executives, coaches and players, will have the team play at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, home of the Jazz since 1991-92.

The Arizona franchise is inactive after playing in the Greater Phoenix area since relocating from Winnipeg for the 1996-97 season.

The Utah Hockey Club currently has the No. 6 selection in the 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft, which will be held at Sphere in Las Vegas. The first round is June 28 (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS) and rounds 2-7 are June 29 (11:30 a.m. ET; ESPN+, NHLN, SN, SN1).

Utah general manager Bill Armstrong told NHL.com at the Scouting Combine earlier this month that nothing has changed in how the hockey operations department is approaching the draft.

“I think that’s one of the reasons that they brought everybody from the hockey ops, is to keep the process the same,” Armstrong said. “I think our staff has done a tremendous job at acquiring prospects and going through the draft and just accumulating a good mass of prospects in a short period of time. So, I think they’re excited about the process that we’ve developed here and the talent, not only that we’ve drafted but also in our staff that allows us to kind of feed the engine every year.”

Defenseman could be an area Utah focuses on at No. 6, with Sam Dickinson of London of the Ontario Hockey League, Carter Yakemchuk of Calgary of the Western Hockey League, Zeev Buium of the University of Denver, Zayne Parekh of Saginaw of the OHL and Stian Solberg of Valerenga in Norway among potential options.