On the latest episode of "Daily Faceoff Live," Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discussed how the Arizona Coyotes do not wish to be the salary cap “dumping ground” of the NHL, rather they want to add pieces to their roster.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Traditionally, when you think of the Arizona Coyotes over the past couple of years, they’ve been stockpiling draft picks and taking on bad contracts to get to the salary cap floor. Is that approach changing, we saw they bought out two players.
Frank Seravalli: That approach is changing and I can tell you that there is an about-face coming for the Coyotes, they are looking to be more competitive next year. They think that they can take the next step in the process. So first and most importantly what that means is they’re not going to be trading away pieces like Lawson Crouse and Nick Schmaltz that had made it to our trade targets board at varying points last season.
The Jakob Chychrun one may be a little bit different because he had a trade request that was lingering for a while for the Coyotes. And I’m not saying the Coyotes are going to be one of those teams that are going to be shopping at Gucci or Prada, they may be more at the Walmart location in terms of what they’re looking to add to their team.
The point is well made by you in that they’re not going to be taking on bad contracts as a dumping ground for other teams and they’ve got a ton of assets that they can move to try and add players. They have 22 picks in the top 100 over the next three NHL drafts. And more than that they have eight second-round picks in each of the next two drafts. So, they can package some of those picks, they’ve got the extra first-round pick, picking at 6 and 12.
I don’t think they’re trading either of those picks this time around, they want to add those right to their team. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Logan Cooley signs with this team for next season. So, there are a lot of things happening with the Arizona Coyotes but the point is yes they may be a team without a home but they want to be more competitive on the ice next season and moving forward. They think they’re ready to take another step in their process.
Tyler Yaremchuk: I look at all of those draft picks and I wonder are the Konecnys and Sanheims out of the range for the Coyotes, or is that the kind of player they would look at?
Frank Seravalli: Probably, I don’t think they’re going to be swinging that big. I think they want to stack up a bunch of smaller moves together. I think they’d be in the market to listen for just about anything. The other thing Tyler, is they can’t actually make all of these picks, there’s no way to sign all of these players and not all of them are going to make it to the NHL anyways. So, to use some of them and trade some of them would be the smartest move for the Yotes.
You can watch the rest of the episode here…
More must-reads: