The Coyotes should have one priority and one priority only when it comes to their summer plans: Get Scoring.
The Phoenix offense is anemic. Yes they lost Mike Smith for the final month, and yes they only missed the playoffs by three point, points which Smith almost certainly would have delivered. BUT they could have still made it in with Greiss in the net had they been able to score. At all.
If you look at the stats, you might not think the Coyotes had that much trouble scoring this year. They did, however, pad those stats in October and November when they were scoring at a pace so surprising that people were whispering that if Smith could turn his game around, they might be a contender.
Well, Smith turned his game around but the Coyotes stopped scoring and they were life and death to make the playoffs all year.
So, a look at the potential unrestricted free agent list is required because that is the easiest way to improve because you don't have to give up any assets.
There are four names that jump at you when you do this: Gaborik, Statsny, Vanek and Iginla.
Now, granted all are getting old, probably due to decline shortly and all going to be expensive.
The Coyotes, after years of instability and tight-fisted ownership (when there was ownership) owe their fans a couple of nice shiny Christmas presents.
The Coyotes, should they, as expected, not give contracts to Morris, Vbrata, Moss and Bissonnette, would have around $9 million dollars of free capspace which would bring the amount available to spend for next year to $16 Million ($55 Million pay roll so far, $71 Million Cap next season).
Add in Compliance buy-outs for Mike Ribeiro and Martin Erat (which should be a given, though I expect the team in reality will be pretty cheap) and you have another $10 Million to spend, giving the Coyotes close to $25 million dollars to play with.
All these numbers, btw, come from Cap Geek and NHL.Com
So, if the Coyotes have $25 million to spend, and they already have Doan, Hanzal and Boedker at forward, along with Mike Smith and one of the youngest, most exciting backends in hockey on top of at least 2 solid prospects (Domi and Samuelson) then this is an opportunity the likes of which the NHL has ever seen.
It's a perfect storm:
1)$25 million dollars in money to spend 2) A team full of young players ready to explode, as well as an elite goalie and a true Franchise player (OEl). 3) Actual Impact Players available in Free Agency
So if I am the Coyotes, I realize that after years of failure and cheapness, the fans are owed some love: it is 100% unacceptable to not spend to the cap. Why would you go to the trouble of owning an NHL team if you aren't going to spend to the cap? It's ridiculous.
So, with some great pieces already in place, the Coyotes can go a little crazy in the UFA market and give their fans a contending team.
Yeah it might be foolish to put your money in an aging superstar, but why not? Why not just have a little fun and see what you can get out of it?
Offer Gaborik, Iginla and Stastny more money than they will get anywhere else. Throw term at them. Who cares? There is no team in the NHL right now that currently has this much cap space with a roster as good as Phoenix currently has. Even with terrible contracts, teams find a way to get out of them, off-set them, move them whatever. What happens three, four years down the line doesn't matter anyways.
If the Coyotes management can give their fans a two year window with which to win with Shane Doan, don't they owe that to us? To Doan?
So open the vault and bring me Iginla, Gaborik and Stastny.
Oh, and don't go half-in and bring me Moulson, Erat and Legwand.
That will make me cry.
Twitter@James_tanner123