GLENDALE, Ariz – In 2014, the Arizona Coyotes had a relatively quiet off-season. This year they made numerous headlines during the summer, but mostly with their ongoing 
public spat with the City of Glendale.
To recap, the City of Glendale voted in June to terminate their arena lease agreement with the Coyotes (which they signed just two years ago). The Coyotes responded by filing a $200 Million lawsuit against the city and obtaining a restraining order which allowed the Coyotes to continue playing at the Gila River Arena while the matter was decided in court. The City of Glendale responded by filing a motion that would have allowed them to skip a balloon payment that they owed to the Coyotes. That motion failed. Finally, after nearly 2 months of legal maneuvering and desperate negotiating, the two sides agreed to a compromise that will keep the Coyotes in Glendale for at least the next two seasons. They negated the original 15-year deal and replaced it with a new 2-year deal (what would have been years three and four of the original agreement).
While the new deal favors the city in the short term, it sacrifices the long-term stability. It now allows the Coyotes to leave after the 2016-17 season with no restrictions, rather than after the 2017-18 season under certain specific circumstances (namely financial losses in excess of $50 Million, which may be a moot point). It also leaves a festering wound in the relationship between the two entities (exacerbated by more recent maneuvering by the city), almost ensuring that the Coyotes will leave Glendale in 2017. What the new deal does for the Coyotes is allows them to operate for the next two seasons free of the immediate threat of having the rug pulled out from under them (albeit under the specter of uncertainty beyond two years). This gives them a precious little wiggle room to operate and show what they can do without the City of Glendale making things more difficult.
In any case, with that matter settled the Coyotes were able to finally focus on the task of putting together their team for the 2015-16 season. They began on Draft Day, which they turned into a fan event in anticipation of their two first-round draft picks. There was a huge buzz around the arena as fans gathered to find out whom the Coyotes would choose with their #3 overall pick. Having narrowly missed out on the NHL draft lottery for a chance at one of the top two picks, the Coyotes were relegated to third and had to watch the McEichel sweepstakes from the outside, albeit with a front row view. With McDavid and Eichel off the board, the Coyotes chose Dylan Strome, McDavid’s teammate with the Erie Otters (to the apparent surprise of nobody but yours truly). Strome was an excellent choice, having stepped into a leadership role on the Otters while McDavid was injured. Strome led the team (and the league) in scoring and helped lead them all the way to the final series of the OHL playoffs. Some scouts speculated that, like his former teammate McDavid, Strome may be NHL-ready, able to jump right in and begin contributing. That the Coyotes decided to send him back to the OHL to start the season is a testament to the organization’s commitment to developing players properly and not rushing prospects to the NHL.
The Coyotes acquired some NHL-ready defensive talent on Day 2 of the draft. First, they traded Sam Gagner and a conditional 2016 draft pick to the Philadelphia Flyers for 6’4”, 220 lb. Defenseman Nicklas Grossmann. Though he hails from Sweden, his last name is German for “Big Man”, appropriately enough. He brings something the Coyotes have been missing, a big body on the blue line. Along with last season’s addition of fellow Swede Klas Dahlbeck and the emergence of Connor Murphy, Grossmann gives the Coyotes defense a much-needed boost in size.
Next on the agenda for the Coyotes was getting the band back together. They traded winger Lauri Korpikoski to the Edmonton Oilers for former Coyote Boyd Gordon and re-signed Zbynek Michalek and Antoine Vermette, whom they had traded at last season’s trade deadline to the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks, respectively. All three are “Dave Tippett”-type players, meaning that they are hard-working and they play the game the right way. Their experience will help lead the youngsters in the Coyotes’ system of hockey, the “Pack” mentality. With the Coyotes’ dearth of top-line talent, they rely heavily on a fast-skating, hard-hitting, puck-hounding style of play. They will need to work together and work hard to gain and keep possession of the puck, and these guys epitomize that work ethic.
They rounded out their free-agent season by adding veteran forwards Brad Richardson, Steve Downie, and John Scott along with goaltender Anders Lindback. Richardson is another “Dave Tippett” style player, hard-working and responsible at both ends of the ice. He’s a solid third-line winger. Downie and Scott are role players. Their high PiM totals give a strong indication of what type of players they are and why they are here. It’s a safe assumption that the Coyotes don’t intend to be pushed around, and they want to make sure their budding young stars are well-protected. Both Downie and Scott are quite capable in this regard. Downie’s numbers over the last two seasons indicate he is also more than qualified to skate a regular shift without being a defensive liability. Lindback has shown he is quite capable of filling the backup-goaltender role for Mike Smith, who will probably be counted on for his usual 60-65 starts.
Once again the Coyotes dipped their toes into the free-agent pool without diving in. Their biggest off-season acquisitions were players who were here at the beginning of last season (or a couple of years before). Beyond that they didn’t really make a splash with any of their signings. They made a couple of nice moves, but nothing earth-shattering. Once again, they’re going to rely heavily on the contributions of rookies and the improvement of other young home-grown players.
Among these, Tobias Rieder and Connor Murphy are the standouts. Jordan Martinook also has made the jump from the AHL this season, after a brief trial period last season. They will be expected to continue their development with the Coyotes, hopefully followed closely by the new crop of baby Coyotes, led by Max Domi and Anthony Duclair.
The trio of Rieder, Domi, and Duclair got out of the gate quickly (totaling 6 goals and 6 assists among them in their first three games) and, not coincidentally, so did the Coyotes (3-0-0). The followed the 3-0-0 start with a 0-3-1 stretch, followed by a 2-game winning streak and then a 2-game losing streak. The team has long suffered from inconsistency, which clearly drives Head Coach Dave Tippett crazy. He preaches work ethic, effort, and consistency but his teams have been schizophrenic in recent years. Like Forrest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.
One wouldn’t expect a Dave Tippett team to ever get outworked, or at least not twice in a row, but the team has been guilty of lackadaisical efforts in many of their games, at least in parts of them. They have been outshot in 7 of their first 11 games, but have managed a 4-2-1 record in those games. They have scored just 5 power play goals in 43 attempts, while surrendering 4 short-handed goals (including one in each of three consecutive games). Their power play is tied for 25th in the league at 11.63%. Their four short-handed goals allowed is tied for the most in the league, and they have yet to score a short-handed goal themselves. Their penalty-killing percentage of 82.93% ranks them 13th in the league.
On the plus side, the Defense does seem to be less porous than in recent years. They are younger, bigger, and more physical for the most part, which helps them clear out the front of the net. They are still prone to rookie mistakes, but on the whole they seem to be giving up fewer shots per game. They’ve only had four games in which they’ve given up more than 30 shots, and they won two of those. Overall their defense is strong, but when they make mistakes they tend to make them big. That should change with experience, but I think they could use a steadying veteran influence on the blue line (say, perhaps, a Derek Morris-type player).
Up front, the youngsters have had to carry the load for the most part. Aside from a Mikkel Boedker hat trick, a 3-point game for Shane Doan and a 2-point night from Brad Richardson, most of the scoring punch has come from the first- and second-year players. Antoine Vermette and Martin Hanzal, two key cogs, have been limited by injury and Boedker is notoriously streaky. The Coyotes will need more from them if they are to remain competitive. They could also use a proven sniper to help jump-start the offense.
All in all, starting the season 5-5-1 is not bad for this team, but they will need to be more consistent going forward. There is much room for improvement and they can’t afford to fall too far behind the competition in the Western Conference.
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