Mikhail Sergachev has a summer plan to take his game to the next level. The foundation of that plan is always the same. It's just the finer points that shift from season to season.
"I'll go back to Moscow — always," the Utah Hockey Club defenseman said. "I've gotta see my grandma, my grandpa, my parents, everybody. I love being in Russia."
Sergachev will take a month off during which he will spend a fair amount of time on his grandparents' small farm which is about a seven-hour drive south of Moscow.
The farm includes goats, geese and, of course, chickens. That's where Sergachev picked up his love of farm-fresh eggs that he imported to Utah — a love that Salt Lake Tribune beat writer Belle Fraser brought to light in a recent story.
"It's pretty far south so it's kind of warm and there's a lot of rivers where we can swim around," he said. "I spent my childhood there pretty much.
"We wake up, we feed the goats, we collect the eggs. Sometimes we collect the hay that we cut ourselves, or we have a tractor pull up and cut some hay for us. Sometimes, we get the ATVs out. It's a fun summer place to be with family and friends."
When the summer fun ends, Sergachev will be on a mission in Russia's capital. He has enjoyed assuming the mantle of No. 1 defenseman on Utah's blue line. He has appreciated the welcoming arms with which his teammates, coaches, management staff, ownership and the fans have greeted him. He believes he has made strides on the ice.
"But there's always a but when you talk to him," said Utah assistant coach Mario Duhamel, who coaches the defenseman. "That's just who he is. He wants to reach perfection."
In this case, there are several buts.
"I have enjoyed it so far but I want to get better at it," Sergachev said of being the team's minutes eating, big-moment blue liner. "I want to produce more. I want to play better defense. I want to be up on the rush more. I just want to be more and help the team more than I've done this season."
Filling the No. 1 D-man role
As first, full-time forays into being a No. 1 defenseman go, Sergachev's early returns look pretty good. Entering play on Saturday against his old team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Sergachev was tied for third in the NHL in average time on ice at 25:21. He was fourth among NHL defensemen in time on ice on the power play (210:45), 11th in penalty-kill time (193:46), he was tied for seventh in goals among NHL defensemen (13), 15th in assists (32) and tied for 13th in points at 45.
"What you were hoping — and what he did bring in the end — was leadership, somebody who could play huge minutes in big-time roles on your number one power play and your number one PK, and then someone who could play against the other team's best players," GM Bill Armstrong said. "He has delivered on all of those.
"You watched our team go through some struggles earlier this season when we had injuries. He was able to kind of get us out of those because he played so many minutes. When you've got a high-quality D-man that's playing 26 minutes a night, it's crazy how much they can impact the game."
When the 2023-24 season ended, Armstrong's No. 1 priority was to upgrade the blue line. The system was chock full of prospects who could one day impact the team, including Dmitri Simashev, Maveric Lamoureux and Artem Duda, but Armstrong and the management staff had a more immediate goal in mind.
"We had picked up top of the draft for a few years and we had forwards like Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley and Conor Geekie who were ready to step in, but D take a little bit longer to develop so as we examined things, we figured that if we wanted to take a step the next year, we were going to need to go get a really good D-man, and we had the assets to do it," Armstrong said.
"We said, 'Let's reach out to some NHL teams and see where they're at.' You never know, right? The year before, we were able to get Sean Durzi and that was a big part."
The initial calls didn't produce much fruit.
"Nobody really got back to us and I should say one GM asked if I was on drugs when I asked for his best player," Armstrong said, chuckling. "I'd say there were about 10 players that we really inquired about and planted some seeds as we moved along in the process. Sometimes in just having that conversation, those teams go back and do some planning, and sometimes they reach back out to you. Getting a No. 1 D is hard. They're hard to find so that's a big trade for us to be able to pull off."
The price was understandably high. Utah sent budding defenseman J.J. Moser, Geekie (the team's top center prospect), a 2025 second-round pick and a 2024 seventh-round pick to Tampa Bay to acquire Sergachev — a trade that shocked many, including Sergachev.
"When you’re getting signed for eight years, you don’t expect to be traded after one year, and then two days before the no-trade clause kicks in," he said. "But at the same time, like my wife said, ‘It’s a great opportunity for me to go and be a leader on a team.’"
Leadership is one of the less tangible qualities that Sergachev has brought to Utah, where he was named an alternate captain.
"He's won two championships," Armstrong said. "That's a huge thing you can bank on with him because he's been down that path so he understands the process."
Despite the two Cups he won with Tampa in 2020 and 2021 (plus a third Finals appearance in 2022), Sergachev does not strut his championship pedigree. He is more focused on sharing it.
"He really wanted to have a good impact on his teammates when he arrived," Duhamel said. "He wants to be there for them, be available to talk to. Yes, he came in with some status and some expectations, but you still have to gain the trust of your peers. For him, being a number one [defenseman] is being a guy that's there, that's listening, that talks to the group when it's the right time."
Sergachev said that approach extends to the ice.
"Obviously, I enjoy being out there for big moments," he said. "I love that and I want to be out there, but I also want the other guys to do that.
"This is not basketball. I don't want it to be a one-way street when, if anything happens it's just, 'Throw Sergey out there.' No, we're not that kind of a team. We have eight defensemen, nine defensemen who can play and can play well. So I want our team to be successful all together."
Learning from the past to improve the future
When Sergachev faces off against Tampa on Saturday for the first time since the trade, he admits that he will be a little nervous, but he also insists that he has moved on.
"I'm not sour about the trade; I'm not pissed off," he said. "Hopefully, it's just another game."
Even so, he acknowledges the myriad lessons he took from Tampa, whether it was former assistant Rick Bowness encouraging him to "Stay in the battle," or current Lightning captain Victor Hedman exemplifying what it means to be a No. 1 defenseman.
“I learned a lot from Victor,” he said. “I learned his stability on the back end, his day-to-day routine, how he treats everyone around him, how he’s always happy, how there’s no bad day in the NHL for him."
Sergachev has already applied many of those teachings. NHL experience has added more. He has improved his sleep habits, getting eight to nine hours of sleep a night. He has improved his diet. He has improved his entire recovery process, and he has tried to add more pieces to his game this season, like shooting more from the blue line with the simple goal of getting pucks to the net.
"I try not to make any crazy moves like I used to make," he said. "I still do once in a while, but I'm a big believer in getting the puck through for your guys. Maybe they'll tip it, maybe they'll get a rebound. It doesn't matter if you dangle a guy or you just take it wide and shoot it, I just try to simplify it."
That focus was on display when he walked the blue line against Buffalo on Thursday to get a shot past Sabres forward Alex Tuch and score the first of his two goals in that game. But there are many more projects Sergachev will tackle this summer after a season of knowledge amassed as the team's No. 1 guy.
"Before every summer, I sit down and I try to watch 10 to 15 games that I play to see patterns; things that need to be improved," he said. "I think the accuracy of my shot needs to be better. I feel like I can be a 20-goal scorer and I want to be.
"I want to get better on the rush by joining and not panicking. Sometimes when I lead the rush, I just dump it in because I don't want to make a mistake. I want to have that confidence in my ability to stickhandle and pass so I can hold on to it and make a better play. Maybe there's more points and more goals for us if I hold on to the puck a little longer."
Given the recent publicity around his locally-sourced eggs, Sergachev is even considering making custom egg cartons with his charity logo on them and distributing the eggs to everyone on the team who wants them.
"Except Nick Bjugstad," he said, laughing. "He doesn't deserve them."
