Follow @james_tanner123 I know that people have extremely limited viewpoints when it comes to team construction (e.g teams are either "rebuilding" or "win now" when in fact it's really a much more fluid process) but hear me out anyways.
Let's look at (obviously) the Coyotes.
They finished last year as the second worse team in the NHL and only an inexplicable 5-0 record against the Oilers prevented them from finishing last and taking home at least Jack Eichel. Everyone expects them to be horrible again this year. Frequently I hear the logic that they are going to tank again because they want a shot at Auston Mattews, who is a local Arizona kid.
In my opinion that doesn't really do justice to the Coyotes roster, which I believe is much better than people give it credit for. Now, I am not saying it's great, but it's not the garbage-fire people make it out to be. A look at the Coyotes moves this summer (Gordon, Richardson, Vermette, Downie, Michalek) shows that they are - at the least - intent on playing a competitive veteran group and developing their rookies slowly.
To be specific to a possibly unnecessary degree, they now have 12 players on one-way NHL contracts and room for only a couple of rookies. They did have to get to the cap floor (though with the Pronger/Grossman deal they were not far from there before signing all those guys and now are nearly $3 million over), but with Samuelsson, Lessio, Shinimin, Domi, Duclair, Murphy, Gormley and maybe one or two others at the point where they either need to make an NHL roster permanently or change organizations, it wasn't strictly necessary to bring in so many bottom-of-the-roster vets. Since they did, it's reasonable to assume that they don't want to be a horrible noncompetitive team. They might still be, but no one can accuse them of tanking.
Yes they lack front-line scoring, but they do have some useful players at forward to the point where their team could be surprisingly good under two (admittedly) difficult conditions: 1) They acquire two players who are either first-liners now or have that potential and 2) the rookies that they elect to dress this season perform well.
If you'll allow a brief digression, I will call back to the opening paragraph when I mentioned that rebuilds are, in my opinion, much more fluid then people think. The reason for this is that the timing required to have all your players reach their peaks and primes in and around the same time, while having enough good players that it makes a difference, and all the while balancing your salary cap, is extremely difficult and requires a good bit of luck as well (think drafting a Keith in the second round; finding a Hossa who doesn't age, getting two top three picks back-to-back etc).
With this in mind, the Coyotes have to realize that their best player, Oliver Ekman-Larson, is 24. Now, that isn't old and he isn't going to start drastically declining and we can reasonably expect he'll be one of the league's best defensemen for the next eight to ten years, but he IS statistically likely to have the best two seasons of his career as he is entering his age 24 and 25 seasons.
The Coyotes also have a solid dependable goalie in Mike Smith.You don't need a superstar goalie, but it is more difficult than you'd think to find a Smith.
So keep that in mind and allow me one further digression: Youth.
The common narrative is that you have to break NHL players in slowly and that if you don't, you risk screwing them up and ruining their development.
Now, I've never seen a detailed study on this, but logically it's a faulty premise: Every "bust" in NHL history can not possibly have been ruined for the same reason. Also, consider parity: the difference in talent between all but the best and worst players is marginal at best. One hypothesis is that psychological makeup is an underrated factor in determining success at the pro level where most players have an indistinguishable difference in skill level.
I am not saying being rushed when not ready isn't a factor for some players, just that we tend to say that about every single player who doesn't live up to expectations and it just seems like too easy of an answer. Some guys, sure. But, besides logic, the other reason I don't like this reasoning is that it's empty. I mean, how do you tell? Who says player X wouldn't have sucked anyways, even if he came into the league at 22 instead of 18?
I also don't buy that a season of losing is going to ruin anyone either. Again, I don't know how we'd figure this stuff out, but based on my own personal experience, people good enough at what they do to make it to a professional level aren't likely to give up and lose total confidence in themselves because they had a bad season (and keep in mind that most professionals aren't specialized to the point of a professional athlete where even a player several levels below the NHL would blow your mind with his skill if you played pick-up with him).
Take the Oilers, since they're everyone's favorite example of why you "don't rush kids": they sucked last year because they didn't have any top pairing defensemen, didn't have a top level goalie, had weak depth at centre and had their best player miss 30 games. I guarantee you that RNH, Eberle and Hall aren't going to lose confidence in themselves and bust out of the NHL. I predict that Yakupov won't either.
It's been discussed that in the NHL young players are more successful than people tend to think. Studies show that scouts and coaches favor older players in terms of ice time, and yet that young players score more.
Now, there is a problem with the data in that if you are in the NHL as a young player, you're likely to better than average in the first place. Still, acknowledging that doesn't mean that there isn't at least the suggestion that players should come to the NHL sooner and play important minutes while younger.
If you're interested, here's a few links to see for yourself.
Digression over, here's my point.
The Coyotes have a team that has a surprising amount of depth, at least if you ignore the need for star forwards. They have an elite defenseman entering his peak years. They have a good goalie and a ton of prospect capital.
Also, the young players - especially high-end ones - tend to do better than people think, the rate at which you can draft, develop and insert players into the NHL is slower than the rate of decline for a player after 24 and thus it might actually be in the interest of the team to accelerate the rebuild a little bit.
Furthermore, the Coytoes are in a great position cap-wise and they also have a ton of expiring contracts.
With all this on my mind, I recently saw the baseball trade deadline where player-for-player trades are basically extinct. With, I'm sure, a few exceptions, baseball trades are a player who can help you know for several prospects.
Though this is applied generally by teams hoping to win now, I think the Coyotes could apply this to make themselves competitive this year, but with an eye to staying that way for the duration of Ekman-Larsson's prime.
The first step is to sign Cody Franson and Brad Boyes. At this point, I think offering some sweet term would entice either player to come play in one of the nicest cities the NHL has to offer.
Plus, how many teams can offer Franson a chance to play with OEL? As I argued before, Franson's right-handed cannon of a shot and surprisingly impressive stats (Makes everyone he plays with a better possession player, scores at an elite 5v5 rate and top 20 PP rate) make him the perfect partner for OEL.
The second step is then to use their prospect capital to acquire a couple of top-end forwards. Domi, Duclair, Strome and Dvorak should all be rushed directly into the NHL, because the odds say given their talent levels they'll perform better than many "name" players of an older vintage.
Then, Samuelsson, Dauphin, Letunov, Perlini, Merkley and one, maybe both, of Murphy/Gormley and the teams two first round picks should be used - baseball style - to acquire ready-now NHL talent.
Keep in mind, that other teams won't credit how sneakily good the Coyotes will be making themselves and the value of their own first round pick with no lottery protection would be sky-high.
Let's just get crazy for a second and imagine the team then uses that capital to make a bunch of trades to vault them into win-now territory.
James Van Riemsdyk from Toronto for Brandon Gormley, Nick Merkley, the Pronger contract and the Rangers 2016 first.
Jonathan Drouin from the Lightning for the Coyotes 2016 first and Maxim Letunov.
Shea Theodore from the Ducks for Doan, Samuelsson and Perlini.
This would allow the Coyotes to dress the following roster:
JVR - Drouin - Domi Duclair-Strome - Boedker Dvorak- Hanzal - Boyes Chipchura/Richardson - Vermette- Downie -
OEL - Franson Stone - Michalek Theordore - Dahlbeck / Murphy The Coyotes would then have a young, talented, cost-controlled team. One with positional flexibility and depth. They would have an exciting team, one with a massive ceiling and they'd still have some decent prospects in the system.
I'm not saying this is realistic (it has virtually no chance to happen) but the reason I'm positing it is to show how with some creativity and imagination, the team could make themselves competitive and exciting while staying young and under the cap.
It's not a "here's what they should do" but a "here's what they could do if they moved aside the long-held belief of babying young players and relying on veterans." I'm not saying this is a cup winner or that there aren't holes in my thinking, just that the regular way of doing things hasn't amounted to much and that is more than one way to skin a chicken. (Is that even a saying? It should be).
The Coyotes, in two or three years, may end up dressing a line-up of similar excitement, but this way they are taking advantage of the best years of the best player in franchise history and giving their fans something to care about. Thanks for reading.