The Coyotes cut six players, as per the team's official website, and they were as follows:
Michael Bunting, Alex Grant, Dustin Jeffrey, Eric Selleck, Dysin Mayo and Ryan MacInnis.
None of these are surprising. The team home/season opener is two weeks tonight and there are still 43 players in camp, so more should be coming shortly.
Coyotes play the Sharks tonight.
Coyotes fans on Twitter last night were loving the chemistry between Domi and Duclair in the scrimmage game, and one guy I talked to who was at the game said they looked amazing together.
People have been assuming the Coyotes' top line will be Vermette and Boedker with either Domi, Duclair or Rieder. The fact that anyone would openly talk about Antoine Vermette being the #1 centre is the best argument I have heard for putting Dylan Strome directly into the NHL.
You don't necessarily need to make him the top line guy either, just have some options because if Vermette is playing the most it's a near guarantee that last place is in the offing. I'd put Strome in the NHL right on a line with Domi and Duclair (since that's likely going to happen eventually) and just try to shelter them when possible.
Any argument about Strome is to me ridiculous. He already absolutely murdered the OHL and it's a waste of his time to go back there. False comparisons to Coyotes of the past don't do anyone any favors because not one of those guys was on Strome's level, and even more so because Kyle Turris is a fantastic player who would currently be the best forward the Coyotes have by a good mile and a half. All reports I have on Strome are extremely favorable and virtually all players of his caliber (i.e a #1 overall equivalent) go directly to the NHL.
Fact is, the Coyotes have way too many duds on their team and while the system has a ton of great prospects, one of these years they're going to have to bite the bullet and dress more rookies than they really would ever want to in an ideal situation. It might as well be this year since the way things are currently constructed the team is looking at another top pick. (i.e if the team does what every assumes and sends all rookies but Vermette and Duclair to the AHL/OHL, plays a ton of Vermette/Doan and dresses a plethora of "bottom six" players).
I don't think it can.
So maybe they should force Strome, Domi, Duclair, Samuelsson and maybe even one of Perlini or Dvorak into the lineup this year and just hope for the best. That way, next year, they all have at least one year of experience and the team can look at breaking in the likes of Letunov, Fischer, Perlini/Dvorak, MacInnis, Merkley, and (dare we hope) Matthews.