The Coyotes go into Edmonton tonight to take on the Oilers. Yes, the Coyotes have been struggling, but I’ll save you the depressing stats. The Wild won last night and Phoenix now sits six points out of a playoff spot, which means the Coyotes are now closer to 12th than they are to 8th – that’s really the only stat that matters. They lost to Calgary- what more needs to be said?
Sadly, both teams view this game as a good way to bust out of a slump. Phoenix has done nothing but lose this month and the Oilers have lost five straight. Win or lose though, it promises to be a better game than the last one, as at least the Oilers are fun to watch, as they feature several of the league’s most exciting young players. Plus there is always the chance of a Bryzgalov post game interview.
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Do the Coyotes even have a GM?
I mean, ok, clearly they do, but what exactly has he been up to? Not making trades, that’s for sure! It’s pretty clear now that the Coyotes either won’t make the playoffs or they will make it just long enough to be crushed by the Ducks.
So let’s maybe try to have a little fun since it hasn’t exactly been fun to cheer for the team this month.
Here’s what I would do if I was the GM:
It’s time to regroup for next year and stock up on youth. The good news? The Coyotes don’t need to go the Edmonton route (i.e a seventeen year rebuild) because they already have Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who I am predicting within two years is the best player in the NHL outside of Sidney Crosby. It’s hard to remember when you watch him play every night that he’s just a kid who isn’t even close to being in his prime – he is actually going to get better.
So what are my moves? I’d go a little crazy – I think one of the things holding the Coyotes back from just quitting on this year is the optics. They have a new owner, they have low attendance and the last thing they want to do is go lower in the standings or look like they’ve given up. Instead, they need to trust that their fans are intelligent. Pitch the rebuild properly and it will go over fine.
So the first thing I do as GM is call a press conference, thank our fans for the support and promise them that if we get a little worse in the short term, it will pay off in the long term tenfold. I remind them that we are building around a generational talent and I promise that for the rest of the season we will play exciting, wide open hockey with tons of fights. I emphasize the fights. People love fights. It’s no coincidence that Paul Bissonnette is the most popular Coyote.
Knowing that Tippet is a good coach but since his specialty is defense and that is no longer working, I fire him. Controversial move, I know. But I want old-school hockey with lots of goals and fights. That’s the new Coyotes way. You can’t sell hockey in the desert by clogging the neutral zone and sitting your most popular player every other game. Who do I hire? The man who defines old-school, whose teams are known for fighting and scoring: who else but that old Son-of-a-bitch Pat Quinn. My first choice is Don Cherry, but he refuses to come out of retirement. Quinn it is.
As a promotion, in our first game with Pat behind the bench, the first ten thousand fans (i.e everyone who comes) gets a free Pat Quinn wig in the design of the classic haircut that only he has ever had, in the history of hair.
Soon after hiring Quinn, I make my first trade and it is not a blockbuster. I send a third round pick to Toronto for Colton Orr and he know patrols the fourth line with Bissonnette and is centered by Kyle Chipchura, who is no longer allowed to masquerade as a higher-in-the-lineup option.
Jeff Halpern is released from his contract or whatever the rules stipulate – bottom line, he’s off the roster and I have a tiny sweater made up with his number on it and I put it on a turtle who now scoots along the ice during the intermissions.
My next trade involves our friends the Oilers. I send them Keith Yandle for Jordan Eberle and the option to swap first round draft picks. Thus ensuring we can pick early in the draft this year to accelerate the rebuild. My argument here is that both players have flaws in their games, but Yandle is the more valuable overall asset being as he is a number one defenseman and thus the hardest position to fill out on a roster. Plus, this is only a matter of maybe three or four positions in the draft.
My Third move sees me sending Shane Doan – cue the tear stained hockey press conference cliché – to the Penguins for a first round pick. If people think Cammelleri is worth a first, surely Doan is.
Antoine Vermette is a PK specialist and Washington needs help in that area. Also, maybe they would like Rundblad to take some pressure off Green? We send them both for prospect Tom Wilson. Done.
Next, a big trade goes down with the Senators. Unhappy with the play of Craig Anderson, I send them Mike Smith, Rob Klinkhammer and Lauri Korpikoski to help with their PK, in exchange for Robin Lehner and Codi Ceci. I retain all the salary I can in case they need the cash for anymore “forensic investigations.…
Mike Ribeiro is then sold to the highest bidder. I don’t expect to get a ton for him, but in the end we receive a couple medium level guys who can help us out by playing tough and skating fast on the third line.
In order to increase attendance, the Turtle who wears Halpern’s number now races an actual real Coyote during the second intermission of each home game. The turtle doesn’t slip as much on the ice as the Coyote, so it’s a pretty fair race.
At the trade deadline, Radim Vrbata goes to the Canucks for prospect Jordan Subban because we are Phoenix and we love young defenseman. Our team is going to be terrible for the rest of the year, but we now have Robin Lehner as our goalie of the future. Our Defense remains a position of strength as we've lost Yandle but added Ceci and to go with Hanzal, Boedker, Max Domi, Chris Brown and Henrik Samuelson, we now have added Jordan Eberle, Tom Wilson – as impressive a group of young forwards as there is in the league.
For my series of slightly lopsided coupes, I am awarded a trophy for being the best new GM, as well as free tickets to Canada Fest. The Coyotes then use Edmonton’s first overall pick to select Aaron Ekblad.
OK so that’s all a little ridiculous, but it’s fun (at least for me) to pretend that we aren’t mired in a losing streak and in an untenable position as regards to doing what’s right for the franchise and the realities of being in a non-traditional hockey market.
Thanks for reading.
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