Clayton Keller had a list of goals taped to his closet door when he was 10 years old.
His father, Bryan, helped the young hockey player compile the things he would strive for on and off the ice — shoot 1,000 pucks a day, get good grades, go on college visits and play in the NHL, to name a few.
“I was kind of able to check all of them off one day and I signed it at the end,” Keller said. “It’s something that I still have.”
Keller one-upped his list on Friday when he became the first captain in Utah Hockey Club history.
The group’s last captain in Arizona was Oliver Ekman-Larsson. After he was traded in July 2021, the team decided to roll with just alternate captains as it entered the rebuild. Now in the fourth year of that process, Utah knows its leader.
“We wanted to make sure that we got the right person,” general manager Bill Armstrong said. “The other part of that is what we talked about when we came here in the spring — we need to get over the hump, we need to push this organization. The only way to do that is to have a leader and a captain.”
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah Hockey Club forward Clayton Keller (9) as Utah Hockey Club hosts the Los Angeles Kings, NHL pre-season hockey in Salt Lake City on Monday, Sept. 23, 2024.
When the Arizona Coyotes selected the forward seventh overall in the 2016 NHL Draft, they hoped he would be the fresh face of their franchise. That he was, and now, the 26-year-old Keller is leading his team into a new era in Utah.
Keller has committed himself to a standard of excellence since his first full NHL season in 2017-18. The Missouri native is a four-time All-Star and has led his team in scoring in five of the past seven years. After breaking his femur in March 2022, Keller came back in the 2022-23 season and posted a career-high 86 points (37 goals, 49 assists). He followed it up with a 33-goal showing in 2023-24.
“His desire to be better every day cannot be a better example of who we want to be as an organization,” head coach André Tourigny said.
That desire started early for Keller. The winger — who is 5-foot-10 and 178 pounds — was considered undersized as he went through the ranks of youth hockey. It made Keller work twice as hard, he said. That mentality landed him at Shattuck-St. Mary’s, a boarding school in Faribault, Minnesota, that has one of the best prep hockey programs in the country.
Shattuck head coach Tom Ward watched Keller fine-tune his gritty but “uber-talented” game at the under-18 level in 2013-14.
“He wasn’t afraid of the moment. He wasn’t afraid to lead. He wanted to be out there. He wasn’t intimated. He’s got a little dirt to him — he doesn’t take s--- from anybody,” Ward said. “He has confidence, but he’s not cocky. Players gravitate towards that. He’s the guy that everybody wanted to play with.”
Keller led the team in points that season with 77 (36 goals, 41 assists) through 51 games and finished his career at Shattuck with a USA Hockey Tier I Youth National Championship before going to the U.S. National Team Development Program (USNTDP) in Plymouth, Michigan.
Arizona Coyotes Clayton Keller reacts after scoring a second-period goal against the Detroit Red Wings during an NHL hockey game, Thursday, Oct. 12, 2017, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
When players arrive at the USNTDP they’re 16 years old and quickly have to decide if hockey is what they will commit their lives to. It is all-consuming. Keller immediately bought into the process, said Danton Cole, then head coach of the USNTDP Juniors team.
Cole saw Keller take the undersized allegations and hit the weight room to get bigger and stronger. It translated to his game on the ice.
“There weren’t many puck battles he would lose. He wasn’t shy about going in the corners, wasn’t shy about going to the net or playing in the hard places around the rink,” Cole said. “What you really noticed was that he could just flat out play the game.”
At the end of practices, Cole would have his team scrimmage against each other. If Keller’s group was down 3-2 with a few minutes on the clock, he would ask to keep playing. Keller never wanted to lose, and he dragged his teammates into the fight with him.
Cole still gets the occasional text from Keller, and it’s usually a Patrick Kane highlight clip, he said. Kane was one of Keller’s favorite players growing up, and one he and Cole talked about emulating when he was in the program. Now, kids there look up to Keller.
“Not a lot of people get to have their dreams come true,” Cole said. “It’s a neat thing.”
Keller had one last stop in Massachusetts before making his NHL debut on March 27, 2017. The Boston University men’s hockey team was happy to have him. Keller played one season of NCAA hockey for the Terriers in which he led the team with 45 points (21 goals, 24 assists) through 31 games.
He was the ACHA, New England and Hockey East Rookie of the Year after a commanding freshman campaign.
“He was a lot of fun to watch that year. I think he exemplified in a very good way what a BU hockey player is all about,” Bernie Corbett, the broadcast voice of BU for the last 40 years, said. “He was a great teammate. He was very well-liked. There was no diva in him.”
Arizona Coyotes' Clayton Keller (9) celebrates after scoring with less than a second left during the third period of to tie an NHL hockey game against the St. Louis Blues Monday, Feb. 8, 2021, in St. Louis. The Coyotes won in a shootout. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
One of Keller’s most memorable plays for BU came in the 2017 regional semifinal in North Dakota. In the game’s second overtime, Keller dished the puck from the left circle to Charlie McAvoy — who is now a defenseman for the Boston Bruins — at the right doorstep to knock home for the 4-3 victory.
“That was one of my favorite calls of all time,” Corbett said. “That was memorable. I put that as a signature moment in BU hockey history.”
Keller signed his entry-level contract with the Coyotes that March, but it wasn’t the last Corbett saw of him. BU was in Arizona the following season to play Arizona State University at Gila River Arena. As the team bus was hurtling down the highway to the rink, Corbett looked out the window.
“I just remember all of a sudden we are approaching the arena and there’s Keller’s picture on a big billboard promoting tickets for the team,” Corbett said. “A year later, and he’s up on the billboard on the highway heading to the arena.”
Keller’s popularity with the fans and his teammates has not wavered. It is part of the reason he was chosen to be Utah Hockey Club’s first-ever captain. Keller’s winning mentality will hold the team to a higher standard as it looks to turn a corner in the standings this season.
“Guys will say it, I’m hard on them sometimes but that’s because I care and deep down I want the best for them and for myself as well,” Keller said. “This is a huge honor. This means so much to me.”
