As it currently stands, the Coyotes don't have the defensive depth to be a very good team next year. While a bottom-six of Vermette, Doan, Rieder, Chipchura, Richardson and Downie would likely be pretty good, the Coyotes also have Scott, Henderson, Vitale and others that will likely mean some of the players who could make up a decent checking team will be forced into offensive roles too high in the lineup to be effective.
There are also players like Henrik Samuelsson and Lucas Lessio who've paid their minor league dues and deserve an NHL shot, plus players like Dvorak, Perlini and Strome who could force the issue and make the Don Maloney shuffle the deck quite a bit before the season gets started.
Regardless of who does and doesn't have a good camp one thing is certain: the Coyotes have too many bottom-six role players, very few NHL proven top-six performers and a whole bunch of forwards who look like they'll eventually make the NHL. All this, plus a pretty weak defense adds up to the need for a trade sooner than later.
The Coyotes defense is pretty suspect after you move on from OEL, Stone and Murphy. Sure, Michalek is solid, if aging, and Dahlbeck has potential, but outside the three young dmen, there isn't a lot in the system or on the team that is promising.
Pairings for this year are likely: OEL-Stone, Dahlbeck/Grossmann - Murphy, Dahlbeck/ Grossmann - Michalek. That doesn't instill me with confidence in anything but the chance to draft Auston Matthews.
I like the top three, but after that it gets dicey. I don't think you can judge Dahlbeck effectively since the season was all but over when he arrived here last March, and even if he avoids a sharp decline, Michalek is aging and has a lot of miles on his body - certainly he won't be here when the team is ready to compete.
And that's the thing: Competing. I don't think this team needs to write this season off. If they enter it as is and dress nine bottom-six forwards + Hanzal, Domi and Boedker with this defense then that is what they're doing. I actually think that with a couple of moves they could at least ice a competitive team without sacrificing anything to the rebuilding gods - no one is saying that they should try to win, just that they probably shouldn't be horrible on purpose if they can help it.
To my mind, this means another trade is necessary. Probably a couple, but definitely one. Duclair, Strome and Domi are all but untouchable. However, the likes of Perlini, Samuelsson, Merkley, Dvorak, Letunov and MacInnis all have value and could net the club a defenseman that would leave Dahlbeck and Grossmann fighting for the final left-D spot in the lineup.
Just for example, what if the Coyotes offered the Wild - a team hoping to compete this year, but who has less than two million in cap-space - a prospect like Perlini and be willing to take the contract of the rapidly declining Tomas Vanek or Koivu in exchange for a defensemen like Jonas Brodin? (Of course, everyone on the Wild has a no-movement clause, so this is just an example).
Seems to me it's a trade that could work for both teams. The Wild have Suter, Dumba, Spurgeon and Scandella, so they could probably live without Brodin, and at the same time they'd now have close to twelve million dollars in cap room in order to improve their team.
Of course, this assumes the Coyotes would be willing to spend a ton of money to get better, but even if they wouldn't spend so much (and I doubt they would) the names here aren't important, it's the idea:
The Coyotes have two things teams need: Prospect Capital and Cap Space. They should use it to avoid making this season an absolute waste of one of OEL's peak years.