The Arizona Coyotes have made some noise on the free-agent market, inking winger Jason Zucker to a one-year $5.3M deal, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.
Friday evening, Craig Morgan of PHNX reported general manager Bill Armstrong’s approach to the opening up of free agency. Grabbing a quote, Armstrong said, “Our approach in free agency is to make our team better for tomorrow, but not worse in three to four years. We don’t want the deals that we do today to take away from deals that we could be doing when we’re really good so there’s some short-term deals to be had.”
Keeping that frame of reference in mind, this deal for Zucker entirely fits the mold of what the Coyotes are trying to accomplish. Not only does this deal make the team better in the short term, but the ability to trade Zucker at the deadline for assets is important for the team as well in the midst of their rebuild.
In a career that will now span more than 13 seasons, Zucker has played for only two teams, the Minnesota Wild and Pittsburgh Penguins. Acquired at the 2019-20 deadline by Pittsburgh, Zucker did not take off offensively until this past season. Reaching his highest scoring totals since the 2017-18 season, Zucker scored 27 goals and 21 assists in 78 games for the Penguins this year.
Zucker immediately becomes one of the team’s best forward options, able to play both sides of the wing. Primarily leaning heavily into goal-scoring, Zucker should benefit well from the high-level playmaking ability of Clayton Keller on the opposite wing. Zucker is also a physical player as well, throwing 197 hits last year in Pittsburgh, giving Arizona the opportunity to move him anywhere throughout the lineup.
Unless his play completely falls off the rails, or the Coyotes take a major leap in the standings next year, it is unlikely that Zucker will finish the year in Arizona. In the meantime, the Coyotes improve in the short-term, while also adding to their trade arsenal come next trade-deadline season.
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