With free agency around the corner, it is time to look at who Utah could be interested in on July 1.
Earlier, I wrote a piece on Utah's top forward targets this off-season. Now, let's look at the top defense targets for this free agency.
Utah could use up to $17–20 million of their available $43 million in cap space to address needs up front. That would leave them somewhere in the neighbourhood of $20 million to address their defensive needs.
The challenge is that they have Sean Durzi, J.J. Moser, and Juuso Valimaki, who are all RFAs and need to be re-signed. That could take up to $5–6 million of the $20 million designated to the back end, leaving $14 million to sign at least two top-end defensemen and one bottom-pairing blue-liners.
Utah's Defense Targets:
- Brandon Montour
- Matt Roy
- Shayne Gostisbehere
- Erik Gustafsson
These four defensemen are the four that I've been talking about all off-season. Signing at least two of these four makes a ton of sense for Utah. However, if they could make the money work, GM Bill Armstrong could realistically sign three of the four. The three that make the most sense are either Brandon Montour or Matt Roy. Then Shayne Gostisbehere and Erik Gustafsson.
The reason behind one of Montour and Roy is that either of these two could easily be the top defensemen on Utah's back end. They won't be able to afford both, but signing one of these two could pair nicely with Durzi and improve your top pairing.
Gostisbehere and Gustafsson could help run both units of the power play while also providing the team with more offence at five-on-five.
Utah's 2024–25 Defense Pairings:
Durzi - Montour-Roy
Moser - Gostisbehere
Gustafsson - Valimaki