Logan Cooley doesn’t have to imagine what it’s like to share an NHL locker room with Vincent Trocheck anymore. The Utah Mammoth center is living it now, and for Cooley, that makes this trade feel a lot bigger than a standard roster upgrade.
Trocheck’s arrival from the New York Rangers gave Utah a veteran center with playoff experience and a proven top-six track record. But the move also stitched together a story that started years ago in Pittsburgh, where Cooley grew up watching Trocheck become the kind of player young kids wanted to be.
That connection was already in motion before the deal was finalized. Trocheck said he had been talking with several Utah players, including Cooley and Clayton Keller, about the organization and what it’s like inside the team.
“I talked to a lot of the players,” Trocheck said. “I’m close with Logan Cooley, Pittsburgh guy.
Talk to him, talk to (Clayton Keller), talk to a couple guys that I know on the team. They’ve just talked about the organization, the way that Ryan (Smith) treats the players and how awesome it is here.”
Cooley’s interest went well beyond helping sell the destination. He had a personal reason to care. The chance to team up with Trocheck - someone he had looked up to for years - had him checking in constantly as the trade talks developed.
“We were talking about it for a couple weeks leading up to it, how it was kind of a possibility that I was going to come here,” Trocheck said. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure how real it was, and he was texting me every day for what felt like two weeks asking me what was going on.”
The relationship between the two goes back to Cooley’s childhood. Trocheck said he watched Cooley develop from a young player in Pittsburgh into the NHL talent he is now.
“He was skating with us when he was 12,” Trocheck said. “I got to watch him kind of grow up from a young age and watch him grow into a spectacular hockey player.”
Trocheck even laughed about how good Cooley was back then.
“He was making me look bad,” he joked. “He still does that now.”
That bond helped make Utah an easy fit for Trocheck. According to The Athletic, Cooley was one of the players who helped convince him the Mammoth were building something worth joining. Utah owner Ryan Smith pointed to that kind of internal recruiting as a major plus for the organization.
“The best thing that can happen is our other players are telling him how great it is,” Utah owner Ryan Smith said.
Now the circle is complete. Cooley, who once watched Trocheck from afar, gets to learn from him every day in Utah - on the ice, in the room and as the Mammoth try to keep moving forward.
For Utah, it’s a meaningful addition of a veteran center. For Cooley, it’s something more personal: a childhood hero who is now right there beside him.
In Other News...
Utah Is Entering The NHLs Most Brutal Division At The Worst Time
The Central Division already looked like a grind, with the Avalanche, Stars and Wild all projecting as legitimate threats and the Jets still in the mix. Then Utah went and added more firepower in the offseason, which only makes a deep division feel even tighter for a team trying to climb into the postseason picture.
For Arizona fans still tracking the old franchise footprint, it is a reminder of how unforgiving the road can be in that part of the league. The Blues, Predators and Blackhawks all have their own roles to play, but the bigger question is whether Utahs push is enough to change the balance at the top, or whether it just makes an already brutal race even harder to sort out. [Read more 🡒]
Utah May Have Just Avoided A Costly Dylan Larkin Mistake
The Mammoth spent the offseason reshaping the middle of their roster, and the center market was one area they clearly studied with care. Utah ultimately landed Vincent Trocheck to bolster the lineup and also brought in goalie prospect Sebastian Cossa from Detroit, a pair of moves that signaled a willingness to improve without emptying the cupboard for one splashy name.
Dylan Larkin was part of that conversation, but Utah appears to have stepped back rather than chase a deal the Red Wings were trying to force into a higher lane. Detroit has been working the trade market for its captain without finding a match, with Minnesota among the teams that checked in, and the latest list of possible destinations now includes Vegas and Florida as well. For Utah, passing on that chase may have been the prudent call. [Read more 🡒]
Barrett Hayton Just Faced A Franchise Changing Crossroads
Barrett Haytons summer took a familiar restricted-free-agent turn before settling back into place, with the 26-year-old forward set to stay in Utah after the club moved to keep him from reaching the open market. The one-year deal carries a $4.775 million price tag and keeps a player who has become part of the Mammoths core conversation right where the organization wants him as it continues sorting out its long-term roster picture.
The bigger story now is what comes next, because this arrangement only buys time. Hayton will be eligible to discuss a new extension starting January 1, 2027, and both sides have framed the offer-sheet process as part of the business of NHL restricted free agency rather than a personal standoff, leaving the door open for a much larger decision down the road. [Read more 🡒]