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SALT LAKE CITY — It wasn't until Utah started losing that head coach André Tourigny understood how much of an impact defenseman Mikhail Sergachev would have on his team.
After shooting out of the gate and winning its first three games, the Hockey Club came crashing down to earth. The team lost eight of its next 10 contests — a kind of stretch that could have sunk a young team.
"He had that calm presence and that confidence about himself that when we went through adversity the first time," Touringy said of Sergachev. "(Almost saying), 'That's just the game. That's the NHL that's the way it will be. So just buckle up and get used to it.'"
If Utah manages to sneak into the playoffs this season, it will have that message to thank. Even if it doesn't, it has laid a foundation for the future.
Leading into the season, general manager Bill Armstrong tried to tone down expectations for his club.
There was a lot of buzz surrounding the team — how could there not be? It was the first season in a new market with young and fun pieces. But amid all the excitement, he offered a word of warning: The team was still young and it needed to learn how to win.
Enter Sergachev, a player who had done a lot of winning over his years.
In his first full season in the league, he helped Tampa Bay to a conference finals appearance. He went on to win two Stanley Cups and play for another with the Lightning, never missing the playoffs in his seven years in Tampa.
"You can't pinpoint one person when you win Stanley Cups, it's kind of everybody's involved," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "But he was a huge part of it. We have so many guys that got the attention and won a lot of the awards. But Sergachev could put his name right in the hat."
That's one of the reasons Armstrong swung the trade for Segachev last offseason, bringing in the young veteran to hopefully help push a young team along.
The Club mostly knew what it was getting from Sergachev on the ice — a two-way defenseman knocking on the door of the game's elite — but he's proven to be just as key off of it.
The latest example? Utah's 6-4 win over his former team on Saturday.
"Early on, I think a lot of us were trying to hang in there, but now we know we can beat these top teams and teams with superstars, and an organization that does things the right way," said Logan Cooley following the win. "For us, that's what we want to get to. We want to be the Tampa Bay Lightning of the league. And I think we're working to that spot."
Tourigny echoed that sentiment.
"Winning once, it's incredible; winning on a consistent base every year and be a contender every year, you need to look at what they do and what's the recipe," he said.
What better person to help create that in Utah than someone who lived it?
"If you do things the right way, you're going to win more games," Sergachev said. "That's what I learned in Tampa."
And what he's trying to teach in Utah.
Yes, there were plenty of stars that helped lead the Lightning to all that success — Victor Hedman, Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Andrei Vasilevskiy, to name a few — but, to him, there was so much more involved that helped Tampa Bay reach those consistently high levels.
He remembered how key the line of Yanni Gourde, Barclay Woodrow and Blake Coley was to the team, and Pat Maroon's big moments.
"They're great players in the league, but not superstars — they're not Kuch — but they did their job to win," he said. "That's kind of my message: It takes everyone."
That message has resonated in Utah; not least due to the messenger.
His influence in Utah is not a surprise to his former coach.
"Sergey is very vocal. He's got leadership in him. He wants to win," Cooper said. "He's got a burning desire for that. So my thought is he'll be one of the big leaders on (Utah) at some point."
That point has already happened.
Sergachev didn't use that voice much in Tampa, mostly because he didn't like it was needed. There were other players to talk — superstars and older veterans — so he mostly took a backseat.
"We just had a lot of voices who are older than me and more experienced," he said. "Sometimes I just wouldn't talk, because there's no need to talk when you have Stamkos and Hedman talking. Once in a while, I would say something, but most of the time, I just shut up and play."
There isn't a Stamkos or Hedman in Utah. If anything, he has become that person.
That was one of the reasons he was excited about the trade to Utah — at least after the initial shock wore off. It gave him a chance to cement himself as a No. 1 defenseman in the league and a chance to grow into a mentor and leader in his own right.
"I sat beside Hedman for seven years, and I learned a lot from him," he said.
Now, he's passing that knowledge on.
"When he talks, everybody's listening," Dylan Guenther said. "He's the backbone of our team."
