It was Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy and Robert Redford’s Sundance Kid who made famous a question uttered multiple times in their classic film about the adventures of the aforementioned outlaws, a question regarding hired hands who were tracking them in a ridiculously persistent and proficient manner, one they could scarcely believe. It’s a question we, too, commence in earnest to answer here about Utah’s new hockey club and the folks who play key roles for it, on it. “Who are those guys?” We begin with Dylan Guenther, a young dude whose name you might not yet know all that well, but whose game you’ll want to get to know better, fast.
He’s a winger who is likely to lead UHC to whatever future success it will skate down, dig out of the corners and put in the goal — unless his obvious talent blossoms to the point where some other NHL team offers so much in trade value that Utah can’t resist a deal. Guenther wouldn’t want to be singled out as an emerging star like that — there are others emerging, too, he makes clear, including boyish center and line mate Logan Cooley, and an assortment of vets who, he says, “are supportive, helpful, and always trying to improve” — but, oops, too late. Begin the realization, the acknowledgment now: Guenther and Cooley will be NHL stars, and if we flip the film script, don’t want to overcook this, but they’ll be Utah’s Sundance and Butch.
“He can make plays, I can make plays,” Guenther says. What the kid-wing.
