The Utah Hockey Club wins the first game after the move

Good morning, I'm Dan Gartland. I hope you enjoy the final day of four playoff baseball games.

In today's SI:AM:

🍎 Mets take Phillies to edge
✈️ Where do the Jets go from here?
🏀 Big East preview

Salt Lake City's NHL franchise has no name, but a 1-0 record.

The team, temporarily known as the Utah Hockey Club, opened its inaugural season Tuesday night at home against the Chicago Blackhawks, winning 5-2.

It only took five minutes for the team to score its first goal – a high-position one-timer from Dylan Guenther. Utah added goals from Clayton Keller and Barrett Hayton to extend the lead to 3-0 before the Blackhawks managed to cut the deficit to 3-2. An unanswered goal and another goal in the final seconds put the finishing touches to the win.

The fans were engaged and vocal throughout the game, singing in unison and waving rally towels. It was more reminiscent of a playoff atmosphere than a season opener.

“We could feel the energy and we’re just happy we could give them a game like that.” said Gunther.

That environment was a far cry from what the team experienced in its final season as the Arizona Coyotes, playing in a 4,600-seat arena on the campus of Arizona State University. The arena situation in Utah isn't perfect, but it at least allows for larger crowds than in Tempe. The Delta Center was built primarily for the Utah Jazz, and putting a rink there requires playing a little Tetris.

The officially The attendance for Tuesday night's game was 11,131. However, this only includes seats with a clear view of the ice. If you include fans sitting in seats where only one goal was seen, you get the number of spectators was 16,020. The fact that nearly 5,000 people were willing to buy tickets to sit where they couldn't watch half of the game should say a lot about how excited Utahns are to have a second franchise in the big leagues. (The team plans to renovate the arena to increase the number of full-view seats.)

“This is history” Keller said after the game. “It will only happen once, so just try to take it all in. I think we all had our nerve, and that's a good thing. Especially in this scenario you want to have nerves before the first game of the season. So it was super cool and something I’ll remember forever.”

The Coyotes were among the saddest franchises in American sports during their final years in Arizona, reaching the playoffs just once since 2012 while the shadow of arena uncertainty hung over them. On paper, Utah isn't much better this year than the Coyotes team that finished seventh out of eight teams in the Central Division last season. But the atmosphere is at least better than in Arizona. The support of an enthusiastic fan base and the assurance that the team has a hometown for the foreseeable future could be more impactful than any free agent acquisition the team could have made.

…things I saw last night:

5. The lynx celebration afterwards get your ticket to the WNBA finals.
4. Two goals in one minute for the Panthers.
3. Three goals in two minutes for the blues.
2. The reaction of the audience in San Diego to Fernando Tatis Jr.'s home run in the second inning.
1. Jesse Winker's home run to a part of Citi Field that I didn't know was accessible.