Arizona Coyotes: Happy Hockey Day!
God, am I ever glad to say that.
Today is opening night, as the puck drops in arenas across continental North America. Are you excited? If you’re not, you’re probably not a very big hockey fan.
It's here. pic.twitter.com/wNe47ezH1M
— Kyle M. (@KyleWIIM) October 8, 2014
This off-season has been just all of the drama… and it didn’t necessarily start after the Stanley Cup was won. Let’s take a look back at what we’ve gone through since April:
The Post-Season: Nut-poking, death threats, and collapses
I won’t say it’s lucky that there’s nothing Coyotes-related to report here, because… ya know. Missing the playoffs isn’t exactly cause for celebration. Still, the ‘Yotes missed out on a whole lot of weirdness:
- First, who remembers when Milan Lucic speared Danny Dekeyser in his… ah, family jewels? Everyone was so outraged, then a whole slew of guys followed suit- including Paul Stastny, who apparently thought this was an okay way to battle your way back into playoff contention. Interestingly enough, Stastny’s twitter handle is @PaulyWalnuts. Paul- not okay.
Puck Prose
- Let’s not forget, either, that this was the post-season of epic choke jobs. First, the big one- the San Jose Sharks blew a 3-0 lead (and something like a ten-goal deficit) to fall in the first round to the Los Angeles Kings. Then, honorable mention goes to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who lost every 3-1 lead they obtained throughout both series they played in. *golf claps*
- Oh- and Milan Lucic gets an additional nod for his kind words during the Montreal-Boston handshake.
Entry Drafts are fun
This year’s entry draft was delightfully non-obtrustive. No one in this particular draft class was Sid the Kid caliber, as I don’t think Aaron Eckblad has qualified as a child for at least a decade. The Coyotes made a nice showing, picking up Brendan Perlini with his giant self and his mad skills. I’m happy with the Brendan Perlini pick, if we’re being honest. He should do some good things in years to come.
Vancouver made some crazy wild moves at the start of the draft, of course, stealing the spotlight from every single other team. Florida, you have the first overall pick and therefore are getting a decent guy to cover for Strombone? Who cares! We just sent Ryan Kesler to Anaheim!
Some people think that the Nashville Predators acquiring James Neal at the entry draft should make the Arizona Coyotes nervous. Do you know who those people are? Nashville Predators fans. Carry on, Nashville, keep doing you.
Oh- I almost forgot! Do you know what else happened on the first day of the entry draft? We bought out Mike Ribeiro.
Free Agency: You get a contract! And YOU get a contract! And you! And you!
Apr 3, 2014; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs forward Dave Bolland (63) passes the puck against the Boston Bruins at the Air Canada Centre. Toronto defeated Boston 4-3 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
I’m not going to go over every single contract signed and traded during free agency, cause Russian Machine Never Breaks already did that for us. (Thank you, RMNB. You win the internet, as always).
First off, I’d like to say how offended I am by the Dave Bolland contract. Dave Bolland, you had TWELVE POINTS ON THE MAPLE LEAFS LAST YEAR! WHO SAID YOU DESERVE $5.5 MILL AAV? I’m still not over this, and probably won’t be for a while.
The Coyotes were delightfully boring during free agency, having already dealt with the Ribeiro disaster and traded absolutely nothing for Sam Gagner. Pretty much the highlight of July 1st for the Arizona Coyotes was watching Radim Vrbata go make new friends in Vancouver.
Odds and ends:
The weirdness continues. A couple top summer stories:
- The Arizona Coyotes got slandered up and down the street for a couple of weeks there, when Glendale mayor Jerry Weiers decided to cause a huge fuss over the open meeting laws and the city’s lease agreement with ICE Arizona at Gila River Arena. Nothing ever really came of it but a ton of Arizona fans getting really defensive and everyone hating Mayor Weiers a bit more.
- The Toronto Maple Leafs have gone all in to the analytics movement, and hired a 28-year-old stats guy named Kyle Dubas as assistant GM. Toronto has to have a hell of a lot of faith in this kid.
- As soon as Toronto hired Dubas, teams began to scramble for guys who obsessed over fancy stats. Most of these were bloggers, who all got sucked into real paying jobs and caused me to feel like Nicholas Cage in Left Behind.
- The Arizona Coyotes were apparently the talk of the town all summer, because they also signed a major financial sponsorship deal with the Gila River Indian Tribe and casinos, causing the Jobing.com Arena to become the Gila River Arena. Then, Andrew Barroway decided he still reeealllyyyyyyy wanted an NHL franchise, and entered into negotiations to buy 51% of the team.
- SUPER WEIRD STORY AWARD, THOUGH, GOES TO THE EXPANSION TALKS. Despite Gary Bettman continuing to insist that nothing is going to happen expansion-wise any time soon, everyone seems to think that the Arizona Coyotes are headed to Las Vegas. They also seem to think that Toronto will get another team and Quebec City will be welcomed into the league, all within the next two years. People are weird.