The Coyotes have a new owner and several new players. They haven't been as active as I thought they might be, but there's still time for a big move before the season.
And, even in a worst case scenario, they won't be considering Ron Hextall or Peter Chiarelli for jobs anytime soon, so everything is at least OK.
June 14 - Sign Ilya Lyubushkin to a 1 year extension.
This deal gets a C + it's close to the league minimum for a somewhat capable NHL bottom-of-the-lineup guy. Doesn't help, doesn't hurt.
June 25 - Trade Kevin Connauton to Colorado for Carl Soderberg
Gonna give this a big fat F.
What the Coyotes are thinking here is hard to see. Carl Soderberg's cap hit is money very poorly spent. They now have no cap space to improve, and unless they figure they can flip him for a profit, this deal sucks.
Soderberg had a good year, but the Avalanche should have had to pay something to get out of the cap hit and they didn't. Sure, he'll help a bit, but considering the money could have been better spent, this is a dud.
June 26 - Name Phil Housely assistant coach.
Ungraded. Who cares about assistant coaches? Not me.
June 30 - Trade Alex Galcheyuk and Pierre Oliver Joseph to the Penguins for Phil Kessel, Dane Birks and a 2021 4th round draft pick.
A+
The way I figure it, the Coyotes just added one of my favorite, if not my very favorite players in the NHL to their roster, so it's an automatic good move in my books.
Sure you could quibble about whether or not Kessel is too old or whether or not he's even that much of an upgrade, but I don't care to.
The Coyotes picked up a star player, and a blue-chip goal scorer. Keseel is probably good for 30 goals and 70 points minimum. Plus, if Galchenyuk did put up numbers like they expect from Kessel, they'd probably have to give him a pretty stupid contract to keep him here.
I like this move.
Thanks to the ESPN.com Transaction List for help on this article.
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