Mikhail Sergachev arrived in Utah in a unique situation. The trade happened four days after his 26th birthday and two days before his no-trade clause kicked in.
The newly arrived Utah Hockey Club was one of the youngest teams in the NHL, so despite Sergachev’s young age, his experience as a two-time Stanley Cup champion came with the possibility for him to step up as a major leader.
That’s not how he saw it at the time, though.
“It’s not like I’m going to go out of my way to be a leader or something,” he told the Deseret News during training camp in 2024. “I’ll just — I’m always talking to guys and if I see something that can help them, I’ll tell them through the coach because I don’t like to be ‘that guy’ to walk up to a guy and tell him, ‘No, you’re doing this wrong or that wrong.’”
That has since changed. When someone needs his advice, he’s not shy about speaking up.
“He’s usually talking a lot,” Mammoth captain Clayton Keller told the Deseret News this week. “He’s talking to the D, the forwards. I think that’s a huge thing during the games, and he speaks up off-ice as well.”
Keller, who was the youngest player to be named captain of an NHL expansion franchise since 1979, appreciates the support.
“(He’s a) great leader — someone that all the guys listen to,” Keller said. “When he talks, the room listens.
“He’s won before, played in big games. He gives a lot of other guys confidence as well. It brings the rest of the group up.”
Sergachev said his emergence as a leader came out of necessity.
“Here, I have a lot of responsibility. Back there, I didn’t really have that much responsibility,” he said, referring to his time with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“... I played for a really good team, championship team, but I wasn’t really like a leader there. Like, my last year they started inviting me to leadership meetings and stuff like that, but I wasn’t really a top guy there. Here, the story is obviously different.”
Sergachev recalls the moment he flipped from follower to leader: It was when the coach first told him he’d play on Utah’s first power play unit. Sean Durzi had occupied that coveted role in Arizona, and with him still being on the team, Sergachev was wary of how he’d react.
“He kind of explained to me everything, how you have to take this role and help the team and stuff like that. So like, since my first year here, I started focusing on trying to become a better leader.”
Not long into that first season, the local reporters got an up-close view of Sergachev’s leadership style, along with the respect his teammates had for him. Below is an excerpt the Deseret News wrote in the first offseason:
“In one particular instance after practice, we media were informed that we only had a few minutes for interviews that day because the team had a meeting commencing shortly thereafter. None of the players seemed to be in a rush, so we took as much time as they’d give us.
“That ended as soon as Sergachev returned to the locker room, quietly telling each player to wrap his comments up to get to the meeting. It was intriguing to see the urgency with which each player responded to Sergachev’s seemingly relaxed request.”
His responsibility extends onto the ice as well, where he has led the team playing time every season. He dominates the franchise’s all-time scoring records for defensemen: He has more than three times as many goals and more than twice as many assists as the respective runners-up.
According to head coach André Tourigny, Sergachev is still getting better, too.
“I really like the progression of Sergy this year. I think his ability to skate is something he — it’s stupid to say, but he starts to understand it more and more,” Tourigny said.
He went on to explain that Sergachev’s default instinct used to be to move the puck as soon as he got it. This season, he’s been skating with it more.
“When he starts to skate with the puck, he’s at a different level,” Tourigny said. “... You will see stretch in practice where you think he’s practicing with the Midget team.” (“Midget” used to be the name of 15-17 age group in youth hockey.)
That willingness to carry the puck has already resulted in a goal for Sergachev this season, when he went 1-on-4 against the Edmonton Oilers.
Sergy 🤯
— Utah Mammoth (@utahmammoth) October 18, 2026
Two goals for the Mammoth to lead off the third. pic.twitter.com/O8jNOiPfp2
Sergachev prepares to host his former team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, at the Delta Center on Saturday. Still on the team are two leaders he looked up to as a young defenseman: Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh.
It will be Sergachev’s fifth meeting head-to-head with the Bolts, who currently sit one spot above the Mammoth in the NHL standings (though they could jump higher with Friday’s game against the Colorado Avalanche).
It will be a good opportunity for Utah to get its rhythm back on the penalty kill — the Lightning have the fifth-worst power play record in the NHL. The Mammoth succeeded mightily on the PK in the first few games of the season but have since struggled.
