The default setting for a rebuilding sports franchise is to lose as much as possible in order to improve your draft position. But that’s not what the Utah Hockey Club is trying to do.

In Arizona, the squad seemed to be in an eternal rebuild. It would land top-10 picks seemingly every year, but could never seem to put all the pieces together and build a contending team.

See, there’s no guarantee that top picks turn into franchise-altering players. Tanking is a gamble at best. Every team hits and every team misses on draft picks, and more often than not in the 2000s and 2010s, the Coyotes missed with their first-rounders.

The losing seasons multiplied, the local interest in the team fragmented and soon enough the team was on its way to Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, for Arizona-based fans, the move happened at what seems to be the tail end of the rebuild.

Since taking the helm in 2020, general manager Bill Armstrong has hit on a number of draft picks. He made a series of trades and signings last summer to add veteran support to his young core. His team seems to be in a better position than ever before.

This is the stage of the rebuild in which the team needs to learn to win — not develop losing habits with the justification that another top 18-year-old is the answer to their woes.

Learn from the Lightning

The Tampa Bay Lightning dynasty, which made it to three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals and walked away with the trophy two of those years, are a good example of learning to win.

In 2019, they tore through the regular season, recording the fourth-best record of any team in the league’s 102-year history. But in the first round of the playoffs, they got swept 4-0 by the Columbus Blue Jackets, who had never won a playoff series in their 17 previous seasons.

The Lightning learned from that experience and came back better than ever, allowing them to have their aforementioned run of success, which began the next season.

Mikhail Sergachev was one of the promising young Lightning players who benefitted from that experience. He now brings two Stanley Cup rings' worth of lessons learned into a relatively young UHC locker room.

Don’t be the Blackhawks

Veteran Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Seth Jones aired his frustrations after his team’s 2-1 loss to Utah on Tuesday.

“I think we’re the exact same team right now as we were at game one, and I think it’s pretty evident out there,” he said. “We haven’t made any strides to be a better, more simple hockey team and it shows. We don’t get a lot of wins because of it.”

That’s four seasons' worth of losing boiling over for Jones, who signed a mega contract extension in 2021 in hopes that the Blackhawks would get back into winning habits after a brief retool.

The Blackhawks are set to finish 27th or worse for the fourth season in a row. Their losing has landed them a boatload of top draft picks — including prospective generational talent Connor Bedard — but it has come at a cost: They now have a losing culture.

Nothing the team is doing suggests that they’re anywhere near the end of the rebuild.

Armstrong has tried to avoid that type of spiral during his tenure in Arizona and Utah. He has his share of young, talented players and he wants them to learn how to win. Part of that process involved adding veterans through trades and free agency over the summer.

Championship pedigree

A common denominator on almost every Stanley Cup-winning team is a collection of guys who have won it before. Disregarding players who have won with their current teams, Utah has the second-most Stanley Cup champions on their roster and the second-most Cup rings.

Additionally, nine Utah Hockey Clubbers have won championships at other levels, including junior and European pro hockey.

Armstrong, a Stanley Cup champion himself, understands that winning is infectious. When you win once, you’re not satisfied until you lift the trophy again. That desire rubs off on others, which can create a winning culture in the locker room.

Playoff push

Whether Utah makes the playoffs this season or not, being in the hunt is of utmost importance to the team’s development — especially for the sake of the younger players.

Armstrong explained the situation during his weekly radio hit on the KSL Sports Zone on Tuesday.

“The pressure is good for us coming out of the build,” he said. “It’s really important for us to take that next step, and pressure is what puts you on the other side of that.”

He went on to explain that playing meaningful, playoff-like games down the stretch is good not only for the development of the players, but also for the team’s mindset if they do end up squeezing into a wild card spot.

“Some teams cruise into the playoffs, and it kind of, almost hurts them a little bit because they haven’t played at that intensity level,” he said. “If we can play at that intensity level, deal with the pressure and find ways to win games, it’s going to really help our cause — not only getting into the playoffs, but also next year.”

As it stands at the time of writing, Utah is three points out of the final wild card spot in the Western Conference. Standing in its way are the Calgary Flames and the Vancouver Canucks — two teams against that UHC has a 2-0-0 record this season.