Follow @james_tanner123 The Coyotes are putting together one of the most fractured rebuilds I've ever seen. While they are stacked full of blue-chip forward prospects, their prospect pipe-line features almost no good defenseman. They have one of the best defensemen in the game, and quite literally also employ four of the absolute worst (Dahlbeck, Michalek, Grossmann, Tinordi). They have elite talent on the way, but their AHL team lacks any decent prospects.
While Toronto looks to re-invent the wheel, exploiting every rule they can in order to get as many draft picks as they can, the Coyotes failed to do anything at the deadline. They traded a busted out first round pick with the defensive skills of a drunk Phil Kessel for basically nothing. They let the rest of their roster rot instead of converting for picks out of a misguided notion they may have a shot at the Playoffs. (A week later they're ten points out).
On the bright side, they made intelligent and shrewd acquisitions in picking up Sergei Plotnikov and Jiri Sekac.
Since drafting Dylan Strome, the Coyotes have now gone almost a full year doing pretty much nothing but existing. They have wasted another year of OEL's prime and acquired two solid defensive bottom-of-the-lineup forwards. That's it.
And the state of the defense is somewhat ironic, because just over two years ago when I started this gig, young defensemen where their strength. They had Murphy and Stone, Gormley, Rundblad and of course OEL.
Ekman-Larsson is among the top two or three D in the league. The other guys are long gone; wasted assets - but who in the organization will make the leap to the NHL and be part of this team going forward?
Not anyone on the current roster: Dahlbeck is among the very worst players in the league. Tinordi is even worse. Kevin Connauton may have a future as a seventh defensemen.
How bad is the prospect situation on defense? Hockey's Future lists Jared Tinordi as the team's number 1 prospect. Which is a little like having Linkin Park as your favorite band or James Patterson as your favorite author. Basically that is so bad that the Coyotes' Hockey Future page should just leave the ten spaces under "defensive prospects" blank.
So when I say the Coyotes rebuild is "fractured" that's because it's amazing to have Strome, Domi, Duclair and Dvorak. It's amazing to have OEL. But what else have you got? And, more importantly, what assets do you have that you can use to make your team better?
Players To Keep:
The Coyotes have some interesting long-shot types in MacInnis, Letunov and Merkely, but all they can really count on is Duclair, Domi, Strome, OEL and whoever they draft this year.
That's actually a lot, but the current roster is so bad it's really just a skeleton of a potentially decent team.
Assuming they want to transition out of the basement for next year, here's a list of players to keep and positions to fill.
Keep: Hanzal, Strome. That's it.
Vermette, Richardson, Cunningham, Vitale, whoever else they have, they're all bad. I think Chipchura makes a decent fourth C, but even he should be replaced with a better version.
The Coyotes will either have to promote Dvorak or MacInnis straight to the NHL or make it a top priority to acquire two bottom six centres who are of at least average NHL quality.
Wingers
Keep: Domi, Duclair, Reider. That's really all you have. Three of eight needed wingers. I like the acquisitions of Sekac and Plotnikov, so let's say the team has 5 of 8 needed quality NHL wingers.
Honestly, Sekac was as great pick up off of waivers. He's got a 100 games in the league, all on really good teams, playing bottom minutes. He scores a decent amount and is a positive career possession player.
Doan likely comes back, even though he's crazy overrated and even in this supposed renaissance season he is still a negative possession player with a high PDO. He should not be back.
I do like Sergei Plotnikov and Jiri Sekac a lot as bottom of the lineup players. They are actually far more effective than what the team had previously. Check it out:
Defense
As mentioned previously, the Coyotes have three of six spots filled on D. They desperately need a top pairing player and one who has potential to develop into one. They also need two bottom pairing, quality NHL defensemen.
Goalie
Domingue has earned himself a look at being the goalie of the future, but obviously the team would be smart to go after one of the goalies on a team with two starters, such as James Reimer, Ben Bishop, Fredrik Anderson or Brian Elliott.
So all told, the Coyotes have need for two centres, three wingers, three defensemen and a starting goalie. That really isn't as bad as it seems. The cap is in good position, they have lots of prospects and two draft picks this year.
With a foundation of Domi, Duclair, Strome, Hanzal, Plotnikov, Sekac, OEL, Stone, Murphy and Domingue they actually have a lot to like going forward.
Thanks for reading.
All stats waronice.com and ownthepuck.blogspot.ca