Utah Hockey Club makes NHL draft splashes by trading for Sergachev and Marino

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Whether it’s owner Ryan Smith’s contagious drive, the excitement of adding two centers in the first round of the NHL draft, or the new blue suit, tie and Utah Hockey Club pin on his lapel he wore, general manager Bill Armstrong woke up energized on Saturday.

“I woke up this morning after I slept for a good two minutes and I said, `Let’s shock the world,’” Armstrong said.

Shock might be a stretch, but the NHL’s newest market in Salt Lake City -- where the Arizona Coyotes relocated in April -- made its presence felt during the second and final day of the seven-round draft at the Sphere.

Barely 10 picks into the second round, Utah completed two trades minutes apart in addressing its defensive needs with established veterans. The team first acquired two-time Stanley Cup champion Mikhail Sergachev from Tampa Bay in a blockbuster, followed up by acquiring John Marino from New Jersey.

“I’m not sure if in your fourth year of going through the rebuild and totally taking it down and bringing it back that you can get there,” Armstrong said, of how much closer he regarded Utah to be a contender. “But it’s a step in the right direction.”

The club entered the draft with 13 picks, and Armstrong delivered on his intention to use some of them as assets. After using the team’s first pick by selecting forward Tij Iginla — son of Hall of Famer Jarome Iginla — at No. 6, Armstrong traded three picks to Colorado in moving up 14 spots to select center Cole Beaudoin at No. 24.

Whatever constraints existed for Armstrong in Arizona under former Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo have been lifted by Smith. The 46-year-old made his fortune in the tech industry, and now is transforming Utah’s sports landscape as owner of the NBA Jazz, MLS team Real Salt Lake, while also heading a bid to land the 2034 Winter Games.

Smith all but telegraphed Utah taking a more aggressive approach a day earlier when asked to assess his team’s gradual rebuilding timeline.

“I like the position that we’re in,” Smith said. “And so I think that’s something that we’re always checking in on. And that’s the plan, until it’s not the plan.”

A day later, Armstrong’s plan has shifted noticeably into the fast lane.

A buzz rippled through the crowd when NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly announced the Sergachev trade early in the second round. Utah sent defenseman J.J. Moser, forward prospect Conor Geekie, a 2025 second-rounder and the 199th pick in this year’s draft.

Daly was back at the microphone not long after to inform fans and the rest of hockey that Utah was not done, getting Marino and the 153rd pick from the Devils for No. 49 and Edmonton’s second-rounder in 2025.

“We gave up a two-time Stanley Cup-winning stud 26-year-old No. 1 defenseman, and that’s not easy to do,” Lightning GM Julien BriseBois said. “Kudos to Bill Armstrong and his group in Utah for acquiring such a fabulous young player.”

The Lightning are the team entering a rebuild three seasons since winning their second straight Stanley Cup. Trading Sergachev, who is signed through 2031, saved them an annual $8.5 million salary cap hit. They also dealt forward Tanner Jeannot to Los Angeles.

And the Lightning stand to lose captain Steven Stamkos, who is still on course to become a free agent on Monday, BriseBois and agent Don Meehan confirmed on Saturday.

Overall, Day 2 of the draft featured 22 trades, involving 15 players and 52 draft picks.

The Washington Capitals acquired goalie Logan Thompson from Vegas, and dealt fourth-line winger Beck Malenstyn to Buffalo. Pittsburgh acquired forward Kevin Hayes and a 2nd-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft from St. Louis for future considerations.

The Toronto Maple Leafs gave up a 2026 seventh-round pick to acquire defenseman Chris Tanev from Dallas, with a belief they can sign the 15th-year player before he’s eligible to enter free agency.

Though Smith and Armstrong cautioned they would not be free-spenders once free agency opens on Monday, that didn’t mean they weren’t going to improve the team in other ways during the two-day draft weekend.

In Arizona, the Coyotes were known for being in a perennial rebuilding mode in making the playoffs just once in the past 12 years, while relocating from one arena to another before finally moving north.

It’s a whole new world in Utah, where the so-called Hockey Club (for this season) has already generated 30,000 season-ticket deposits for a made-for-basketball facility, the Delta Center, with a seating capacity of 16,200 for hockey — and not all directly facing the ice. A permanent name is coming before 2025-26, with Utah HC, Blizzard, Mammoth, Outlaws, Venom and Yeti the six possibilities.

“We’re the youngest state (by demographic), and we’re also the fastest growing. So if you look at both of those metrics, that’s something the NHL is going to be able to look at and say, ‘Wow, like we made the right move,’” Smith said.

For Smith, it’s a matter of balancing his enthusiasm and patience.

“You’re managing polar opposite emotions at all times. Like, you want to win now, but you want to win for the long term. And you want to create this culture,” he said. “But we’re young, and the future looks really bright.”

Brighter still after this weekend.

AP Hockey Writer Stephen Whyno contributed to this report.

AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Tij Iginla, center, poses after being selected by the Utah Hockey Club during the first round of the NHL hockey draft Friday, June 28, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Steve Marcus)

Cole Beaudoin, center, poses after being selected by the Utah Hockey Club during the first round of the NHL hockey draft Friday, June 28, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Steve Marcus)

Cole Beaudoin, center bottom, heads to the podium after being selected by the Utah Hockey Club during the first round of the NHL hockey draft Friday, June 28, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Steve Marcus)

FILE - Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev (98) plays during the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Nashville Predators, Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023 in Nashville, Tenn. The Utah Hockey Club made a big splash at its first draft, acquiring Mikhail Sergachev from the Tampa Bay Lightning. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

FILE - Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev hoists the Stanley Cup while riding on a boat with goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, right, during the NHL hockey Stanley Cup champions' Boat Parade, Monday, July 12, 2021, in Tampa, Fla. The Utah Hockey Club made a big splash at its first draft, acquiring two-time Stanley Cup-winning defenseman Mikhail Sergachev from the Tampa Bay Lightning. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting higher Monday, following the French market as elections continue to drive swings in financial markets worldwide.

The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher as it kicked off a short, four-day week that includes the Fourth of July holiday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 227 points, or 0.6%, as of 9:40 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.1% higher.

Some of the world’s strongest action was across the Atlantic, where the CAC 40 index in Paris jumped as much as 2.8% before settling to a gain of 1.9%. Results from France suggested that a far-right political party may not win a decisive majority in the country’s legislative elections. That could mean the country may avoid one of the worst-case scenarios for financial markets, where such a victory could lead to policies that would greatly increase the French government’s debt and other challenges.

This is a big year for elections worldwide, with voters heading to the polls in the United Kingdom later this week and soon elsewhere. In the United States, pollsters are measuring the fallout from last week’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. It all underscores “political polarisation and how elections are determining economics, rather than vice versa,” according to Nick Gentle and other members of the product management group at Barclays.

Treasury yields rose in the U.S. bond market, a signal that investors were feeling less pressure to own the safest U.S. investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.43% from 4.39% late Friday.

Yields have been generally trending lower since the 10-year yield topped 4.70% in late April. Hopes are rising that inflation will slow enough to convince the Federal Reserve to cut its main interest rate later this year, down from the highest level in more than two decades. High rates are slowing the U.S. economy by making it more expensive to borrow for a house, car or anything else.

On Wall Street, Chewy rose 5.7% after a widely followed trader named Keith Gill revealed that he owns just over 9 million shares of the pet supply company. That’s about 6.6% of the entire company, according to a filing made Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Gill came to fame during the original meme-stock craze of 2020 that saw GameStop rally to market-bending heights. Through it all, Gill became the face of fans pushing GameStop ever upward. Gill had returned to talking about GameStop again recently, which helped its stock rally. But it fell 6.4% Monday following his disclosure about Chewy.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Spirit AeroSystems rose 4.4% after Boeing said it would buy the maker of fuselages and other airplane parts for $4.7 billion in stock and assume about $3.6 billion of its debt.

Boeing, which rose 3.3%, has been facing tougher scrutiny from the government and the airlines who buy its planes over worries about safety and quality. Boeing previously owned Spirit, and the purchase reverses a longtime company strategy of outsourcing key work on its passenger planes.

Meta Platforms dipped 0.3% after European Union regulators accused it of breaching the bloc’s new digital competition rulebook by forcing Facebook and Instagram users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them.

In stock markets abroad, Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.1% after a quarterly survey by the Bank of Japan, called the “tankan,” showed a modest improvement in confidence among the country’s largest manufacturers in April-June.

However the government downgraded its estimate for growth in the first quarter of the year, to a minus 2.9% annual rate from the earlier figure of minus 1.8%.

Stocks in Shanghai rose 0.9% following some mixed data on the world’s second-largest economy. A survey of factory purchasing managers, reported over the weekend, showed conditions remained in contraction for a second straight month.

But a similar private-sector survey of manufacturing activity released Monday showed an improvement in business conditions.

AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.

FILE - A man walking on Wall Street approaches the New York Stock Exchange, right, on June 26, 2024, in New York. Shares advanced in Europe on July 1, 2024, with the benchmark in Paris up 2.8% briefly after the far-right National Rally gained a strong lead in first-round legislative elections. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

File - People pass the New York Stock Exchange on May 28, 2024, in New York. Global shares have advanced on Friday, June 28, 2024, as traders look ahead to a key report on inflation that could influence the Federal Reserve's next move on interest rates. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)

Currency traders watch their computer monitors near the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), right, and the foreign exchange rates at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A currency trader walks by the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Currency traders walk by the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, July 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)