Arizona Coyotes History, Vol. XI: 2007-2008 Season

The 11th Coyotes season, and third season being coached by Wayne Gretzky, was pretty much more of the same..

The then-Phoenix Coyotes finished fourth in the Pacific and 12th in the Western Conference, with a 38-37-7 record — finishing 8 points short of the playoffs.

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For the fifth consecutive season, the Coyotes found themselves missing out on the hunt for the Cup. They didn’t play poorly this season — but the team failed to ever look better than extremely average, going 22-18-1 over the first half and 16-19-6 over the final 41 games.

The Coyotes had bigger problems than their on-ice fall from grace, though.

For the second straight season, the Coyotes were last in revenue in the NHL, losing $300,000 a game — which is good for $30 million the entire season.

New faces this year included Radim Vrbata, who was acquired from Chicago for Kevyn Adams (WHO?) on 8-11-07, and Ilya Bryzgalov, who the team snatched off waviers on 11-7-07. In his Coyotes debut, Bryzgalov logged a 1-0 shutout victory over the L.A. Kings — which happened to be played on the very same day he got picked up. Good acquisitions to help the team out — NOT GOOD ENOUGH, though.

Here’s the stats for this season 2007-2008:

Shane Doan was the highest scorer on this team, his best year as a Coyote. He collected 78 P (28 G, 50 A), which looked even nicer when you noticed his 9 PPG, 2 SH, 5 GW. He took 243 shots. EXCELLENT year for Doaner.
Newly acquired Radim Vrbata had a good year as well, with 27 G, 29 A; 7 PPG, 3 SH, 5 GW while taking 246 shots.
Peter Mueller, 8th overall draft selection in ’06, had a very respectable rookie season with 22 G, 32 A, 7 PPG, 3 GW.
Ilya Bryzgalov’s numbers were adequate, with 26 W, 22 L , .921 SV%, and a 2.43 GAA
Martin Hanzal, 17th overall pick from ’05, played 72 games and was sixth in scoring with 8 G, 27 A in his rookie season

Other dates of interest:

On Feb. 12, 2007– Ladislav Nagy was traded to Dallas for Mathias Tjarnqvist and a 1st round pick in the 07 Entry Draft.

"On April 11, 2007- Senior Executive Vice President of Hockey Operations Cliff Fletcher, General Manager Michael Barnett (Gretzky’s agent for over two decades), and Assistant General Manager Laurence Gilman were relieved of their duties."

May 29,2007– Don Maloney (the current GM) became the 7th General Manager in the Coyotes franchise history.

April 3, 2008– Kyle Turris, the third overall pick in the 07 NHL entry Draft, made his debut. His contributed 1 assist in three games.

There isn’t much more to report for this season. The team just didn’t play very well, and the playoffs eluded them once again.

I go back to my commentary about Wayne Gretzky’s lack of coaching success, and leave you with these numbers: Wayne Gretzky’s winning percentage while coaching for four seasons was a mere .4785, while the present coach, Dave Tippett, has a winning percentage of .5842 over the past 4 seasons — including what we’ve seen of the 2014-2015 thus far (up to 11/24/14).

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It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that sometimes, talent just doesn’t translate into coaching prowess. The more I think about it, the more I am of the opinion that Gretzky was arguably brought in to coach this team as a publicity stunt — to draw fans into an arena which wasn’t being filled enough.

The team’s front office undoubtedly looked at Gretzky’s rap sheet and assumed that the wins and success would follow… yet it looks like an undrafted ex-NHLer gets it done better than the Great One.

I also find it interesting that the entire front office was relieved of their duties after the disastrous ’06-’07 season EXCEPT the coach.. and I can only surmise that was because he was WAYNE GRETZKY.

It couldn’t help that he was part owner of the team, too — perhaps he’d have been better served as a team president, where his ownership status wouldn’t directly affect the players themselves. It was released recently that Wayne “chatted” about the Leafs’ team president job taken by Brendan Shanahan. There’s no doubt that Gretsky will be able put his vast hockey knowledge to use… it just wasn’t in the coaching field.

Of course… we can talk all we want about how the best players don’t always make the best coaches and owners, but it seems people only come to this conclusion when looking at the record from a removed, happier time. *This may or may not be in direct reference to the current Edmonton Oilers.*

UP NEXT: COYOTES THROWBACK HISTORY, VOLUME XII… 2008-2009 SEASON- GRETZKY’S LAST HARRAH AS A COACH?

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