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The Missing Piece: Time to Trade for an Elite Scorer |
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The Arizona Coyotes have got a pretty good team.
Goalie? Check!
Blue Line? Check!
Roster Free of 'black holes' (A Girardi, or a Martin)? Check!
Good GM? Check!
Exciting Additions? Check!
Honestly, the Coyotes have had a great summer. They signed OEL to a nice extension, bet on the continued development of Christian Dvorak (in a widely misunderstood extension) and acquired some nice scoring potential in Alex Galchenyuk (in a trade widely considered a steal for the Coyotes).
They also made an underrated depth move when they acquired Jordan Osterle and Vinnie Hinostroza.
So what do the Coyotes need to take the next step?
They need to acquire an elite top-end NHL forward.
They have $10 million in cap space, they have draft picks that other teams will overrate the value of, and they have a bunch of players - Perlini, Crouse, maybe even Barrat Hayton - who they could afford to trade.
With the age of players like Hjalmarsson, Stepen, Raanta, OEL, Panik and Goligoski (meaning about a quarter of their roster, and half of their best players are 27-33) they should put their remaining chips on the table and see what they can accomplish over the next two seasons.
This is a Cap League, don't forget, where the expansion team almost won the Cup, so teams should load up and recycle every couple of years.
Artemi Panarin is the obvious target here, and I think if you added one of the NHL's best players to this roster you'd have a real chance to do some damage. The upside is that almost every player who plays in Phoenix wants to stay, so it's not impossible he could be convinced to stay.
From a WAR/GAR perspective, Panarin is among the NHL's best players. If the Coyotes offered the Jackets a first round pick and Barrat Hayton, they'd at least have to think about it.
Either way, that specific example might be dumb or a bit of an overreach, but the idea is solid: the Coyotes need to take a bit of their future and turn it into an elite scoring forward, because if they add that to what they already have they will have a very good team.
Washington Capitals Blogger • 
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