Utah Hockey Club’s Michael Kesselring prepares for a special homecoming

Boston • Michael Kesselring’s first hockey battles happened in the family’s basement.

With two other siblings and their cousins who lived down the street, the knee-hockey competitions were heated.

“We literally had holes in our walls from them chucking each other into the walls. It was like a real game down there,” his mother Shawndra Kesselring said.

Hockey and home have always been intertwined for Kesselring. Never more than this week, as the Utah Hockey Club defenseman prepared for a special homecoming.

Kesselring had already played in 31 of the 32 NHL arenas.

On Thursday, the Utah Hockey Club defenseman would finally get to check the last rink off his list. It is one he learned to love the sport at — TD Garden. Kesselring, a native of New Hampton, New Hampshire, grew up a Boston Bruins fan and would get to grace the Garden ice for the first time as an NHL player as Utah came to town.

“Hopefully I play well,” Kesselring said in the days before the game. “It will be cool to see everybody after the game. I think it will be a little bit emotional for me.”

From sitting in the stands to playing against his childhood team on Causeway Street, it would be a full-circle homecoming for Kesselring who has taken on a greater responsibility for Utah this season.

Coming home

It was almost a given Kesselring would get into hockey; his dad, Casey Kesselring, played four years at Merrimack College before spending five seasons in the ECHL. Casey and Shawndra met at Merrimack where she was playing basketball.

Casey was Kesselring’s coach through youth hockey and high school, including the defenseman’s run from 2014-2018 at New Hampton School ahead of going to the USHL.

“He’s a big part of why I’m here now. He’s sacrificed a lot — both my parents did,” Kesselring said. “He’s a good hockey mind and I think it’s always an advantage when you have someone like that in your life growing up.”

Casey is from Kitchener, Ontario and his NHL allegiances lay with the Toronto Maple Leafs, one of Boston’s biggest rivals. That made Bruins games a bit more fun for Kesselring, especially the playoff matchups he was able to catch at TD Garden in which Boston took down the Leafs. Kesselring said, as a kid, some of his favorite players were Patrice Bergeron and Zdeno Chara. Now, he appreciates Charlie McAvoy’s defensive game.

Kesselring was somewhat of a late bloomer in his hockey career. The blueliner never played for USA Hockey and forced his way into the USHL. While the NHL was the obvious dream, it seemed like a far-off destination. Until it wasn’t.

“We were just hoping for college and we didn’t know that the NHL was even going to be an option,” Shawndra said. “Just amazing. He just works so hard. We always say he has willed his way to the NHL. He’s that kid where when somebody is sleeping, he is working. He’s not taking days off.”

As Kesselring arrived back in New England as a professional, those who saw him get his start in hockey were still standing by to support him. Kesselring was a healthy scratch for the team’s game in Boston last season on Dec. 9. This time, the 24-year-old said he would have more than 50 friends and family in attendance at TD Garden.

College hockey in Boston

Jim Madigan, the former Northeastern University men’s hockey coach and current director of athletics, would go up to his office after practice and look out at the ice at Matthews Arena. It was no surprise to him when he looked down and saw Kesselring was the lone straggler long after the team’s session was over.

“It was an hour after practice and he’s still out there shooting pucks and working on his pivots, tight turns, all of the above,” Madigan said. “Always on the ice an hour after everyone left the building. He was always working on his game, his craft.”

Kesselring played at Northeastern in Boston — which is about a 10-minute drive from TD Garden — for two seasons where he developed before making the jump to the pros. New Englanders love their college hockey the way Utahns love their college football. It is, to put it lightly, a big deal.

During Kesselring’s freshman season in 2019-2020, he joined a D-corps that turned out to be filled with NHL talent. Jordan Harris (Columbus Blue Jackets), Jayden Struble (Montreal Canadiens) and Ryan Shea (Pittsburgh Penguins) were all players he was skating alongside and learning from.

Kesselring was thrown into top-four minutes and had time on the second power-play unit in his first year. The defenseman always wanted more, Madigan said.

“Michael wanted to play in all situations, and he played in all situations,” Madigan said. “He’s playing now a mature game, he knows what his strengths are. …The one thing you can’t teach is 6-foot-4 and a long wingspan. He knows how to use his stick, he’s got a long reach, he uses that to his approach.”

Through two seasons with the program, Kesselring posted a cumulative 13 points (seven goals, six assists) as well as 53 blocked shots. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, his sophomore campaign was cut to 20 games. Nonetheless, Kesselring came out of his college experience with a handful of victories, including a Beanpot Championship for Northeastern in 2020.

The Beanpot is an in-season tournament between Northeastern, Boston University, Boston College and Harvard that takes place at TD Garden on the first two Mondays of February. While it does not affect post-season seeding, the schools are playing for the pride of Boston.

Kesselring and Northeastern beat BU 5-4 in double overtime in 2020 to win it all, and have gone on to claim four of the last five Beanpot titles.

“Especially Northeastern, we had a big pride,” Kesselring said. “We were kind of like the kids that couldn’t go to BC or BU or Harvard. We were kind of like the second down. We took a lot of pride in being able to beat those teams.”

Utah is the only team in the NHL that has a player from each of the Beanpot schools — Clayton Keller (Boston University), Jack McBain (Boston College), Alex Kerfoot and John Marino (Harvard), and Kesselring (Northeastern).

“Northeastern fit Michael Kesselring. A hard-working team, determined,” Madigan said. “We had a lot of kids that put in extra time and effort. We aren’t getting first-round draft choices.”

Kesselring was selected in the sixth round of the 2018 NHL Draft by the Edmonton Oilers. He signed his entry-level deal with the team following the conclusion of his 2020-21 collegiate season and went to play for Edmonton’s AHL affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors. Kesselring was then traded to the Arizona Coyotes in March 2023.

Even as Kesselring has made it to the NHL, he has not forgotten where he came from. The former Husky said he would visit Northeastern while Utah Hockey Club was in Boston.

“Beanpot school, playing in Boston, living in Boston,” Kesselring said. “I loved Northeastern, it was an unreal experience.”

Heightened role for Utah

Kesselring has had a greater impact on the Utah backend than most might have anticipated coming into this season.

Due to the injuries of Marino and Sean Durzi, Utah has relied on some of its younger players to step up and take on bigger minutes and responsibility to fill in the gaps. Kesselring has been key to that.

Kesselring’s heightened role has allowed him to be on the ice in big moments for Utah, including 3-on-3 overtime. In Utah’s home game at Delta Center against the Bruins last month, Kesselring scored the overtime, game-winning goal.

“I don’t even know if I have words. Sometimes I don’t even think it’s real. Sometimes I’m watching and I’m like ‘Oh my god, he’s in the NHL,’” Shawndra said of watching that play unfold. “The percentage of somebody making it is so low that you never think it’s going to be your kid, and then he just willed his way into the NHL.”

Kesselring was promoted to the first pair with Mikhail Sergachev for a few weeks before getting moved to play with Juuso Välimäki. He is logging an average 19:20 of ice time a night — close to four minutes more than last season — and has nine points (three goals, six assists) through 18 games, which is more than nine of Utah’s forwards.

The two-way defenseman is also running the point on Utah’s second power-play unit and has found confidence in his shooting abilities while jumping up in the play.

But head coach André Tourigny thinks there’s still another level to Kesselring’s game.

“I think Kesselring has been really good. He has a lot of tools,” Tourigny said. “He needs to keep working on his consistency and quickness of his decisions offensively and defensively, but other than that, he has all the tools.”

If his past record has proven anything, Kesselring will continue to push himself to be the best defenseman he can be for Utah Hockey Club. It is an opportunity he is not taking for granted.

“It’s crazy. I still wake up sometimes and I’m just really grateful about where I’ve gotten to and how this year’s gone so far,” Kesselring said. “A lot of people did a lot for me.”

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