Looking Ahead At Utah HC's Three Game Road Trip

While it looked dire at times for Utah midway through its home stretch, it still came away with a 3-4 record.

Considering that Utah had the least amount of home wins across the NHL, with only five home wins entering the stretch, coming away just under .500 is a great start for a team still trying to find its footing at home.

While Utah now is tied with Vancouver and San Jose for lowest home wins on the season, Utah has shown lots of an improvement and promise after finishing with two straight home wins against the St. Louis Blues and the Winnipeg Jets.

Related: Clayton Keller's Return Sparks 4 Unanswered Goals In 5-2 Win Over Winnipeg Jets

But the question now is can Utah rediscover the road success it had when it set a franchise record seven road game win streak. 

So with three upcoming road games against teams with winning records, let's look at how Utah has matched up with each team so far.

Minnesota Wild (28-15-4) 

To kickoff its road trip, Utah travels to Minnesota to take on the Wild. On the season, Utah has a 1-1 record against the Wild. Utah also has the most recent win in the series after a 2-1 win in Xcel Energy Center extended its franchise road win streak.

One thing to note for this game is the return of both Minnesota captain Jared Spurgeon and teammate Kirill Kaprizov, who leads the team with 50 points despite being out 12 games.

While Utah managed to win against the Wild when both were healthy, there will be a lot of energy from the team and the crowd as it welcomes two very important players back.

Along with that, the hero of Utah's win against the Wild, Dylan Guenther, will be out for his seventh game. Last time, Guenther scored both goals for Utah.

However, Utah has started to find some offensive firepower even without Guenther in the line up as it managed to generate nine goals over its last two games.

While the Wild will be getting healthier, there may be some potential rust for Spurgeon and Kaprizov as both players have missed a combined 21 games. With Utah starting to show some life again, don't sleep on Utah in this game.

Winnipeg Jets (32-14-3)

After facing each other Jan. 20, Utah and Winnipeg will face each other again four days after Utah came away with a 5-2 win.

The season series between these two teams is 1-1 and the home team managed to win in each game.

However, Utah showed that it can create on offense despite facing a Winnipeg team that shut it out earlier in the season and has Connor Hellebuyck, arguably the best goalie in the NHL.

It wasn't only just captain Clayton Keller or rising star Logan Cooley who contributed for Utah, both Barrett Hayton and Josh Doan's chemistry translated into goals as well.

With Jets captain Adam Lowry likely out against Utah due to an upper body injury, Utah could have a chance to get a second win this week against the Jets. Utah will need another complete game full of disruptive defense and goals from Keller and Cooley if it wants to come away with another win.

But don't be surprised if Utah's momentum from its last game against Winnipeg comes through Friday night.

Ottawa Senators (24-19-4)

To close out its road trip, Utah faces the Ottawa Senators in its second matchup of the season.

All the way back in October, Utah was shut out by the Senators 4-0 in its first regulation home loss. With this being the only other meeting between the two, Utah's only chance at revenge will come Jan. 26.

In that game, Utah outshot Ottawa 31-22, but a dreadful first period, during which Utah allowed all four of the Senators' goals, proved to be too big of a deficit to overcome.

Things could prove to be different as Utah's defense has played relatively well despite a 4-8-2 record across its last 14 games.

Though Utah will miss defenseman Mikhail Sergachev, Utah will be able to manage without him if John Marino, who is looking better and better in recent games, can help keep Utah's defense strong.

With Nick DeSimone also playing valuable minutes and goalie Connor Ingram also back in the line up, Utah will most likely be a much tougher opponent on defense than in the first game it played.

With matchups against Minnesota, Winnipeg and Ottawa coming up, can Utah do better than its last road trip when it came away with a 1-2-1 record