'I knew I wanted to be in Utah': Utah Hockey Club re-signs enforcer Liam O'Brien

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Hockey's first fan favorite is sticking around.

Forward Liam O'Brien has signed a three-year extension with the Utah Hockey Club, the team announced Wednesday. TSN in Canada reported the deal was worth $3 million.

"I knew I wanted to stay," O'Brien said. "The group that we have, we're really close, and we've been through a lot together. I've formed a really strong bond with a lot of my teammates. There was no doubt — I knew I wanted to be in Utah."

O'Brien, 29, played in 75 games last season with the Arizona Coyotes, recording five goals and nine assists, and averaging nearly 10 minutes of ice time per game.

The native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, is known as an enforcer and finished 20th in the league last season in hits with a career-high 229.

"It's the best feeling in the world," he said of laying a hit, "and the second best feeling in the world is when you get hit and it wakes you up and you're like, 'OK, now I've gotta go run over somebody.'"

While he did set a career high in penalty minutes last season, he also had career highs in goals and assists. Sure, he's good at his enforcer role, but he also wants to continue to expand his game.

"Since I've gotten Arizona, for me, it's like, how can I broaden my role every season? How can I bring more to the table and bring more to the team? And so summer is always a really good time for me to refine my skills and to work on things that need improvement," he said. "And so next year, and going into this contract, I want to continue to grow as a player."

O'Brien was signed as a free agent by the Washington Capitals in 2014, splitting time between the NHL squad and its AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears. He later signed with Colorado in 2021. He has a lot of pro experience, but he feels he's still relatively new to the NHL, so there's still plenty of room for him to grow.

"I've only played in the NHL for three and a half, four seasons," he said. "And I find every year, I just continually have gotten better. Nothing's going to change, I'm going to continue to work. That's just part of who I am, and really excited to be able to do that in Utah."

And the timing makes it feel a little more special, too. The new contract comes a just few weeks after O'Brien and his wife, Adela, had their first child.

"Me and my wife couldn't stop smiling," he said. "Just super excited to be bringing my family to Utah — just a really good place to be, and really good place to have a family."

As for his new home, he said he's enjoyed feeling the excitement around Utah about the new team.

"People have been really good to me and have welcomed me, and I'm just excited to get the ball rolling and play some games in front of those fans," O'Brien said.

That was something he showed immediately after the relocation news.

"My name is Liam O'Brien and you can call me Spicy Tuna — and I cannot wait to get this place buzzing," he screamed to a full-capacity Delta Center crowd during the team's introduction back in April, later adding that he'd "run through a wall" for the fans.

He'll get a chance to do that this fall.

But where did that Spicy Tuna moniker come from?

"Tuna was my original nickname, and that came from when I was playing in Hershey as a rookie," he said.

The backstory is simple enough — one of his teammates started calling him Tuna, and it just so happened to stick.

"Everybody loved it and it took off; coaches even started calling me it," he said.

Once he got to Arizona, someone added "spicy" to the front; and once again, it stuck.

"The boys loved it in Arizona, and so now the guys either call me spicy or spicy tuna. ... I've got a lot of nicknames, but they seem to love spicy right now," he said.

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