Pacific Review: The Coyotes are finally ready to be relevant

When the Carolina Hurricanes rode a breakout season to the Eastern Conference Final last spring, it ended a decade-long streak of futility. Now the spotlights are being shined on the Buffalo Sabres and the Arizona Coyotes, who have missed the playoffs the last eight and seven seasons respectively.

Since going on a deep playoff run with Dave Tippett and Mike Smith back in 2012, Coyotes have spent the rest of the decade bottoming out and rebuilding. It looks like they’re finally ready to start reaping the benefits of a long, frustrating process.

This whole thing started back in 2016 when the Coyotes made a 26-year-old stats guru named John Chayka the youngest general manager in major-sports history. The franchise had failed to properly tank for Connor McDavid in 2015 and Auston Matthews in 2016 and chose to go in a completely new direction under Chayka’s vision. Since then, we’ve seen Chayka completely tear down the Coyotes, as only two players, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Brad Richardson, remain from the 2015-16 team that he inherited.

The Coyotes put together back-to-back 70-point seasons in 2016-17 and 2017-18 but then had what appears to be a rise to relevance in 2018-19. Though Arizona missed the playoffs, their 84 points were the best result they had in five years, and they did so despite major injuries to important players like Antti Raanta, Jakob Chychrun, Christian Dvorak, Michael Grabner, and Jason Demers.

There was quite a bit to like about last year’s Coyotes team, which creates a legitimate reason for optimism that they can finally break out and get back into the playoffs in 2019-20. Arizona was rock-solid defensively, allowing the sixth-fewest goals in the league. A big part of that came down to an elite penalty kill in which the team killed off 85 percent of power-play opportunities.

The major issue for the Coyotes was offence. Their leading scorer, Clayton Keller, had 47 points, and nobody on the team managed to hit the 20-goal plateau. Some bounce-back injury luck and an off-season addition or two would go a long way in rounding out a Coyotes squad with a strong foundation.

The most important thing to happen to the Coyotes this off-season was the purchase of the franchise by billionaire entrepreneur Alex Meruelo.

It’s an understatement to say the Coyotes have been a disaster in the desert. In 2009, Jerry Moyes filed for bankruptcy and the NHL took control of the organization until 2013 when the Coyotes were purchased by a group of Canadian investors, Renaissance Sports and Entertainment. Despite new ownership, the Coyotes continued to bleed upwards of $50 million per season largely due to an unfavourable tenancy agreement in Glendale.

The Coyotes have had a difficult time developing a fanbase due to a combination of the team being mediocre on the ice and their stadium being in the middle of nowhere. With a local owner at the helm who actually wants to build hockey in Arizona, the Coyotes can begin to fix those issues.

The whole arena deal is a different animal I won’t dive into right now, but Meruelo has opened his pockets to make an investment in the team.

Chayka went out this off-season and acquired Phil Kessel from the Penguins in exchange for Alex Galchenyuk and a prospect. Though he often catches criticism for his personality, Kessel is a consistent scoring threat that adds a much-needed dimension to Arizona’s offence. Kessel has scored at least 20 goals in each of the past 11 seasons, bouncing to playing with excellent linemates in Pittsburgh from awful linemates in Toronto.

In a more under-the-radar move, Chayka acquired an excellent two-way centre in Carl Soderberg from the Colorado Avalanche. Soderberg is coming off a season in which he managed 23 goals despite playing some of the most difficult defensive minutes on the team. If both Soderberg and Kessel can come anywhere near replicating their offence from 2018-19, it’ll be a game-changer for the Coyotes.

Things appear to be looking up for the Coyotes, which isn’t something anyone has been able to say in quite some time. A push into the playoffs would go a long way in finally bringing hockey to life in the desert.