Logan Cooley's Goal vs Vegas: Off-Puck Transporting
Logan Cooley has been very successful to start his 2024-25 NHL campaign thus far, where he’s continued to be one of the most productive offensive players among Utah’s forward group. Cooley has done a terrific job of utilizing his off puck movement to move into space, find open seams, and be able to be both a passing option and goal-scoring option on a regular basis. It always seems that when Cooley is on the ice, he always finds a way to close support the sequence and make himself available in small areas.
Cooley has always brought really fluid instincts off the rush to adapt to his linemates and support his wingers on line rush for, while also maintaining that close support ability deeper down low in the offensive zone. There’s always been a natural ability for him to do that, and as he’s continued to grow throughout the NCAA and now the NHL level, the timing and reads he is making are much faster to support the puck as well.
Notice the initial forecheck waves from Utah to start this sequence here, where Utah provides relentless pressure with Logan Cooley and Matias Maccelli interchanging as F1/F2 to use their speed and close gaps faster. Both players did a great job of using their speed to close the space, forcing Vegas’ D to feel pressured and eventually go for a rim around attempt around the D zone. Dylan Guenther interrupts the rim around attempt from Alex Pietrangelo, and with Guenther as the F3 climbing the half wall now with the puck, he now has a lot of space to operate.
Maccelli now stops up at the faceoff dot, which now opens a passing lane for Guenther to be able to get the puck off the wall. Cooley eventually does a great job opening up for Guenther, as when Guenther retrieves the puck, Cooley sprints to the inside moving downhill to be a weak side passing option.
Cooley maneuvers laterally on the inside, allowing him to be a pass option once Matias Maccelli gets the puck off the pass from Guenther. Once Cooley gets the puck, he one-times the pass and scores top shelf on the Vegas netminder. This initially started with Cooley’s off puck awareness to start the play, where he did a great job of first adapting with Matias Maccelli in the forechecking setting, and then opened up in the middle of the ice without the puck to be an available shot threat.