How Utah Hockey Club uses sports science to stay fresh through NHL season

Clayton Keller eats french toast and fruit for breakfast every morning. Ian Cole lifts weights after each game. Mikhail Sergachev wears blue-light glasses before bed.

It is all part of a routine that keeps the Utah Hockey Club players healthy and fresh for an 82-game NHL season.

Devan McConnell, the team’s director of high performance, is at the forefront of the effort. He uses sports science to maximize the performance of Utah’s skaters. It is an area of the game that has been further embraced by the NHL in recent years.

Is rest better than practice? How does diet affect play? What are athletes doing away from the rink?

Here’s an inside look at Utah Hockey Club’s recovery habits and how data informs them all.

Tracking patterns with technology

At the end of each week, McConnell puts together a formal report that details — from a workload perspective — what the team got done. How much energy was exerted, how much recovery was needed, how much gas the players have left in the tank. From there, he recommends a schedule for the coming week from a “physical readiness perspective,” he said.

McConnell pulls information from a few different technologies to help inform his work.

During practice, players wear a small device — sort of like a GPS monitor, McConnell explained — that tracks the distance they travel, the speed at which they’re skating and how many stops and starts they do. The players also wear heart rate monitors when on the ice; it’s another tool that determines Utah’s workload management.

“We use both to better understand the physiology of what’s happening in practice so we can try to make sure we’re doing the right balance of enough work to stay sharp and prepared and enough rest to recover and be fresh,” McConnell said.

In the weight room, Utah uses force plates, which are platforms with sensors that measure the exerted force the players use when standing and accelerating.

“That allows us to do a whole host of things from monitoring physical development over time — with our younger players who are developing we can make sure that the training we’re applying to them is actually getting them more explosive, faster,” McConnell said.

The force plates also tie into injury prevention. McConnell and his team can look at imbalances between the left and right leg of an athlete when they’re healthy. This indicates the type of rehab the player would need if they got hurt and gives them a base point to work back to in recovery.

McConnell uses all of this data to craft the most effective practice schedules for Utah on a weekly basis — what days they should practice, for how long and how intense or do they need an off day?

There have been times this season when Utah has two days between games and will use both of them as off days. Other times, they’ll have back-to-back practices. It is never a random decision, though.

“There’s times where we stick right to that plan,” McConnell said. “There’s other times where the plan for physiology makes sense but there’s some things tactically that we have to get done so we have to find some time to get on the ice and work on those.”

There is a constant flow of communication between McConnell and head coach André Tourigny’s staff. Tourigny — who, like many coaches, was brought up through the old-school system — usually has the first instinct to practice, to try to get better. But, through conversations with the high-performance group, he sees how rest and recovery can lead to better play even if it forfeits a session on the ice.

“We’re big on that high-performance stuff. A little improvement can make a huge difference in the results,” Tourigny said. “That’s extremely important. Every advantage you can get … You need to take care of that body; their recovery, performance and their power. All of it.”

There are times, too, when the data comes second to the human. While these are professional athletes who understand the stakes of their jobs, they have lives outside of hockey. There are new dads, young guys getting adjusted to the league and the mental battle of dealing with the tight NHL schedule.

“All the information from sports science can say one thing but the most important thing is conversation with the players and them trusting that we have their best interest at heart,” McConnell said. “That really comes with developing relationships.”

Players' personal preferences

Away from the rink, Utah Hockey Club has specific practices that help the players feel their best — both physically and mentally.

Keller takes Epsom salt baths; it’s something he’s done his entire career, he said. The Epsom salt helps with muscle pain and inflammation between games. The captain also has a red-light bed in his house. Red light therapy enhances muscle recovery by improving blood flow and oxygen to those areas to reduce soreness.

Normatec boots are another product a lot of guys on the team, including Keller, use, he said. The full-leg boot helps with fatigue, muscle soreness and inflammation with its pulsing compression technology which increases blood circulation.

“I’m kind of the more movement, activation, core — more so feeling good,” Keller said. “I don’t like to put on a lot of weight on the bar or anything like that during the season. That’s what works for me and there’s other guys in this room that lift a lot more.”

Cole, on the other hand, has weight training engrained into his in-season routine. The 35-year-old veteran said he lifts nearly every day — both before practice and after games — to keep his muscle slowly building through the grind of the year.

“I’m a big lift consistently guy. It’s never a high volume, but it’s consistent,” Cole said. “It’s that culmination of that volume over six months where you can maintain that strength. I’ve been a big proponent of that. I’ve found with the consistent volume you don’t get sore because your body just acclimates to that straight out of summer.”

The biggest game-changer for the defenseman, though, is a good night of sleep. Cole uses products like the Oura Ring and WHOOP bracelets to track his sleep and give him data that can help him know what works for his body to get the most rest. Not drinking alcohol and eating healthy is part of it, too.

“The energy that I have and how I feel on the ice I’ve found to be almost directly linked to how well I’m sleeping,” Cole said. “Try to make up sleep when you can, taking naps when they’re available. Trying to eat early enough that you aren’t going to sleep on a full stomach. All these things help the quality of sleep.”

Sergachev, who logs a team-high average 25:45 of total ice time per game, is also serious about getting eight to nine hours of sleep a night. The battle-tested blueliner needs it.

Sergachev said he tries to go to sleep and wake up at the same time each day to get his body and mind into a strong routine. The defenseman wears blue light-blocking glasses before bed to relax his mind, too. Blue light comes from electronic devices — like your phone, TV and computer — and can disturb sleep by tricking your brain into thinking it is daytime. This prevents the production of melatonin, which helps you fall asleep.

On off days, Sergachev completely disconnects from the hockey world to give his brain a break. He said he does not turn on the TV and deletes Instagram for the day so he can focus on being with his family, especially his young son.

When back at the rink, Sergachev finds himself somewhere between Keller and Cole’s philosophy on lifting weights.

“I lift the day before the game maybe. Two days before the game I lift heavier. But I don’t do crazy stuff, I’m not a bodybuilder,” Sergachev said. “I just do it to keep my muscles stronger. When we play a lot, every other day, you lose muscle mass. So you’ve got to keep it up.”

Focus on nutrition

Diet is a science for Utah Hockey Club.

The team has a whole culinary staff, including two dieticians and a chef they brought over from Arizona, to build effective, individualized eating plans for all of the athletes.

“The nutrition, the food, the supplementation that the players are able to get on-site here with us is absolutely top-notch,” McConnell said. “That goes a really long way not only in how much energy players have on a daily basis, but how well they recover.”

Nutrition is something Keller made a top priority early in his career. The forward has a private chef who helps keep him fueled with the right types of food for his body. Keller has gotten it down to a specific regimen.

On each game day, Keller has French toast, fruit and sometimes a smoothie in the morning. Lunch is the same every day, he said, and includes chicken, sweet potato and a little bit of pasta. After the games, Keller eats whatever meal is provided at the rink.

“It’s all through blood testing, food sensitivities, stuff like that,” Keller said. “I’ve had a chef for a long time now since my second year in the league. I just felt like it’s something that’s very important. It was just an investment I made that I think has really paid off.”

Sergachev has experimented with what food works best for him throughout his nine-season NHL career.

“My first four or five years I was eating a lot of pasta before games and I would wake up from my nap and feel like I was puffed up. Like I slept in water for five hours. That’s why I was tweaking it a little bit,” Sergachev said.

Now, the defenseman feels like the food he eats on a daily basis is helping his performance instead of hindering it. Sergachev has three to four eggs, potatoes, a couple of pieces of bacon and fruit for breakfast. Lunch consists of white rice, sweet potatoes, salmon and maybe a salad — it depends on the day, he said.

Unlike Keller, Sergachev does not eat after the games. If anything, he will have a protein shake. It ties back to his sleep philosophy.

“We finish way too late and if I eat, I feel like I’m not resting while I’m sleeping,” he said.

It is not a one-size-fits-all diet for all the athletes on Utah Hockey Club, but it is important for each player to fuel their body away from the rink. The team talks a lot about getting incrementally better each day, and healthy eating is part of that.

“Nutrition is absolutely crucial,” McConnell said. “There’s a common phrase, ‘You can’t out-train a bad diet’ and it’s really true, especially at this level where you’re trying to find as many 1% improvements across your day, across your week, across your season.”

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