Told ya we were gonna be doin this a little different. Some of the guests had a whole scenario all fleshed out, some just provided a basic outline. So, since the puck drops on out very first NHL regular game of 2008 tomorrow I figured I better blend this one up since Saturday will be our very first GDT of 2008.

HatTrickHound Reports from the soon-to-be-active Diggin in the Corners blog (as soon as I can talk him into regular posts! he’s so good at it we gotta get him active):

HT here with my keys to the season, predictions and where we fit in the post season race.

Keys:
Offense/Bryz carry the team early - the restructed defense will take time to find cohesion and in a very tough Western Conference the Coyotes cannot afford to drop early games and expect to chase teams down throughout the season. The offense needs to come out firing that puck and Bryz needs to be the all world stopper that he’s previously proven he can be and not allow any of those early “soft” goals to slide into the net. As the season wears on, everything will come together as a team, but I believe early in the season (first 10-20 games) that the offense and Bryz need to come out on fire and carry the team early.

“Dirty” goals - goals coming from a “hard hat” type of effort, or from doing the “dirty work” in front of the net and in the corners I believe will be another key to the season. Having some of those big tenacious bodies parked in front of the net, all of our young talent needs to fire away at the net and hope for a ricochet or rebound goal. There can’t be the sitting back and waiting for that “perfect” pass or “perfect” lane to shoot the puck through, fire away and then grind out that “dirty” goal whacking away in front of the net. Rookies will struggle at points throughout a long season, that beautiful “perfect” play will not always be there, they (and the vets as well) need to be willing to shoot the puck and bang home a rebound… grind out a goal… clean up the trash in front of the net… whatever other team you wanna use to take those lose pucks in and around the crease and just get them in the dang net!

Secondary scoring from talent rich team - we’ve all heard how much talent there is on this team. In fact, since I moved here and started watching the Coyotes in the 98-99 season, I believe this is the most talented team, top to bottom, that the Coyotes have had since they’ve been in the valley. I know, I know, teams back then had Tkachuk.. Roenick.. Tocchet.. Teppo.. Drake and Coyote Cubs Doan and Briere.. and they were a lot of fun to watch. I still don’t know that I’ve seen a better player with his back to the net banging in those “dirty” goals then watching Tkachuk back in the day. The thing is, those teams didn’t have scoring talent as deep as this team does going into this season. Between injuries and just plain ol’ inefficiency, they just didn’t have the punch after that first line, line and a half.

This season there is potential to have Carcillo, a potentially 30 goal scorer per Gretzky, as a third liner (at least via the depth chart online at the moment). There could be Hobey Baker award winner Kevin Porter be on a third or fourth line, this is a guy who scored 63 points in 43 games last season and is tough at both ends of the ice. Yes, some of this maybe a bit of the offseason Coyote koolaid talking, but I think there is a ton of talent throughout the entire line-up and we need them all to chip in from time to time. The Big 3 can’t do it alone and finding some scoring balance throughout the line-up will be a key all season long.

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This will be a little different as far as Preseason reviews are concerned. I have invited several guests to voice their opinion on the state of the Coyotes for 2008. We may all have differing opinions on HOW we’re getting to the post season but we have 1 thing in common… we’re going there!TheBadOne from thefanster.com forum, OdinMercer from the soon-to-arrive ‘Howlin from the Cheap Seats’ blog on SBNation, our beloved HatTrickHound and of course me, Onyx aka Z4dfense. We’re going to cover the past, the journey, the evolution and the possible future that begins on Saturday with our first game of the 2008 season. Enjoy the ride.

TheBadOne says:

The Phoenix Coyotes are something of an enigma as far as hockey teams are considered. After moving to the desert from Winnipeg for the 1996-97 hockey season, the team managed to make the post-season only twice and went virtually ignored by the hockey community at large (save whenever someone discusses which franchises should move back to Canada or be contracted.) Yet the 2007-08 season saw a resurgence in the team and saw them take a few leapfrogs back to respectability. As the 2008-09 season rolls around, people are starting to take notice of the first relevant Coyotes team to take the ice in roughly 6 years.

So what happened? At the start of the previous season the team was composed largely of rookies, waiver-wire castoffs, and fringe players to complement their less than ample amount of proven veterans. However, an early Christmas gift in mid-November saw Anaheim Ducks goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov sent to the Coyotes via the waiver wire. His early success opened the door for other talent on the team to shine through. Rookies Peter Mueller, Martin Hanzal, and Dan Carcillo were being noticed in hockey circles outside of Phoenix, while veterans Shane Doan and Ed Jovanovski were having career seasons in spite of expectations to finish in the cellar of their conference. While the team wasn’t necessarily playoff ready, they understood that for the first time in a long time, they had the tools necessary to become a competitive team in the NHL.

As we enter the new season, expectations are on the rise for the Coyotes. There are some new faces joining the team this time around, while the ones that took off don’t seem to be missed as much as they would’ve a few seasons back. Nevertheless, for this team to succeed, everyone on the squad will have to compete with relentless intensity against their well-established rivals. The rise or fall of this squad will rest of the shoulders of a few. Yet if they can work as a cohesive unit, they may surprise themselves and the league around them:

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And to add a hearty… sign him already!

Send an email to Don and Co to get this done and over with for all the saint’s sake. This is turning into the same sort of fiasco as Ballard’s extention for cripes sake… and we all know where Bally ended up doug.moss@phoenixcoyotes.com he’s always happy to hear from us and its time for our voices to be heard once again.

Carcillo - B Oh shut up! The kid did have issues. Big Issues! Then suddenly a light went off over the boy’s head. There was always potential and he always battled hard. He stuck up for his team mates with the ferocity of a wolverine… but he had no stopping sense. That guy woulda earned a C-.

The post San Antonio crackdown-Carcillo is the guy who will make the NHL sit up and salivate. The last 6 weeks of the season, DC finally grew up. The Carcillo Hattie ( a minor, a fight and a misconduct) w/ only 10 minutes of TOI is no more. The kid was on his way to a PIM record breaking season. But somewhere in his *hindbrain* something woke up and JeebusMerryandJosephat was it ever a revelation! A Carcillo with a multiple point game rather than a multiple PIM game… a Carcillo with an NHL recognized Hattie, a Carcillo that played whistle to whistle and still took no prisoners … (hey Barch! How’s the glass jaw?)

THAT’S the guy I want playin for my Yotes. THAT’S the guy who earned the B.

He shoots! He scorzes!

http://www.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?hlg=20072008,2,1216&event=DAL542

Carcillo’s house of pain, now serving #324. Who gots next?

You either love him or you hate him… but here’s a few takes from the Locker Room crew.

“This team needs Danny Carcillo and I hope we see an offensive minded DC after the end of the year showed he has a serious offensive upside. We still want him to kick some ass and we hope he remembers Roenick. I hope he gets some support some of his teammates when it comes to aggression coz we need to be a team that no-one likes playing”

“He will battle in the corners, he will hit (although, he misses his target a lot), and he is fast.” 

“And there were so many games there for awhile where the guys just didn’t have the energy that they did before… once DC went out- the whole game would change, and not just the fighting…”

See more of the Crew: http://www.azsportshub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=741

Celebrated our country’s birthday in grand style with most of the ususal suspects and some family from Tucson. Interesting mix of people from lots of walks of life, Much like our country, it was a melting pot event. I’d like to take the time to send a quick shout out to all you service folks who drop by to keep up with the Coyotes from far away places! Thank you all for all you do to make America one of the greatest countries on earth. If it wasn’t for the warriors, no one else would have the freedoms and the great life we all enjoyed so well yesterday.

Well its back to work for me. Sizing up how we did during the last few weeks is not an easy task.

Draft day we did phenomenally. Our new rookies have seriously got it goin on. From Bods (#8) to Billingsley (#189) we picked up some quality kids, some kids who have skills, a few with hockey pedigrees and mostly kids who could someday stand on Coyotes ice and make us all proud. I have to say it was definitely and A grade run.

Our free agent run is a very mixed bag in my eyes. Was I disappointed? I have to be truthful, yes. I thought we would concentrate about 6 or 7 mill on 2 fair quality, proven defensemen. But there is a reason that I sit here typing and GMDM is out there shopping. We picked up Sauer (to replace our beloved Ballard) and Hale (to replace the stalwart Boynton) and we will probably be running 7 defensemen as Jonesy and Yandle try to step up into expanded roles alongside Z, Jovo and DMo.

These guys aren’t on many people’s radars (certainly were’nt on mine). But Sauer and Hale were certainly on GMDMs since he let it be known that Sauer was his first pick at D and although Hale hasn’t scored that life changing 1st NHL goal yet, I think GMDM is thinking THIS will be the year. I like Sauer’s stats, I like his attitude (”You can’t let any people take liberties on your players, no matter what. You have to be physical right back at them. If they pick on your top guys, whoever we’re playing, you make them pay twice as much.”)I think I’m gonna like this guy… a lot.

On the forward side of free agency, I didn’t even know there was gonna be one and I am still not sure there shoulda been but when GMDM says things like (”Todd’s a guy that has played with some good players, he drives to the net, provides a presence, not unlike Danny Winnik, only he’s big and thick and strong and gives us a presence, so I like the fit. So far we have done two things that we started out to help - we helped our defense and gave ourselves a little more toughness up front.”) you gotta give it the benefit of the doubt.

Given that we know we needed more physical presence (due to the very, very young stature of the team for the next 3 years) and that we definitely need someone who not only understands the terms, drive to the net and crease camping and that we are feeling a pinch on our blue line but have plenty of D coming up soon, all three signings make sense. So I’ll give our FA activities a B- for now and see how it all shakes out when the roster makes its debut.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/coyotes/articles/2008/07/01/20080701yotes-sauer.html

http://coyotes.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=367788

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/119932
 

Okay in day 2 of the Free Agent period I have had time to do some research…

Don Maloney became a genius when he got Bryzgalov from the Ducks for free. The Coyotes proved they aren’t too stingy nor too broke to pay for what they really want when they signed Breezy to the 4 year 4mill per contract (for all those who say the Yotes won’t go past 3 years… they also offered Vrbata 4 yrs btw).

Now that being said… GMDM is very focused on what he wants and the word value is his mantra and his vocation. He simply will not be cowed nor swayed into over paying for anything. He sets a bar and that my friends is that.

So we signed Kurt Sauer (so far our only defensive signing) for 4 years at 1.7 mill per. According to everything I have read so far, this guy is a serious steal. Check out the links below for comparisons and numbers. If Kurt can develop chemistry with DMo we are in for a treat at the #2 pairing. Much as we miss Bally and his hipcheck (and the 21 points he eked out), Kurt will probably not provide more than 10 points but he will augment DMo in the shut down pairing role and possibly allow DMo the opportunity to let his own offensive skills shine.

According to the new depth chart, Sauer may be seeing 3rd pairing minutes with Matt Jones? 2 stay at homes together? Well it kinda makes sense since on the same chart they show Z hand holding Yandle. (all that practice w/ Jovo makes our Z the perfect shepherd for Yentle…seems like another year of punishment to me but what do I know?)

http://coyotes.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=TeamDepthChartPage&dcid=76

With a top pairing of DMo and Jovo we have a possibility of right AND left shot on point for our PP! finally. Jovo was overused on the PP last season but a combination of DMo with one of the young gunners running the secondary unit is intriguing as hell.

Secondary pairing of Z and Yandle is scary. (tell me Yandle w/ 20 minutes of ice time doesn’t freak you out and I’ll call bullshit) But with the premiere TOI-hand-holding champion riding shot gun for the kid, it may give Yandle time and space to learn. He’s got to learn to show no fear. He’s got to step up any aggressive tendencies he may have. But if not, Z will save him from most of his brain farts (if Z goes minus for the year, I do NOT want any shit out of any of you! There’s only so much miracle working my boy can do)

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Despite the warning that we would not be looking at ‘elite’ players… Does anyone else feel let down? Maybe depressed or some how cheated? Is it just me? Should I drink more koolaide and then go over to coyotes.com and stare at the new rookie pictures/movies on Facebook until I believe again?

Jeebus! who knew the going rates for experienced players was going to rival gas prices! C’mon! wth? is Vancouver thinking? 20 mill offer for Sundin? More than 1 smart team (DET, DAL, SJS and us to name a few) stayed quiet today… shopping for small pieces and letting the idiots pick up the shiny, exciting, EXPENSIVE toys. Bet they’ll be more active after all the hub bub has died down. Darren Pang has it right in his take on today…

http://coyotes.nhl.com/team/app/?service=page&page=NewsPage&articleid=367494

Ok that was my first reaction to Free Agent Frenzy…

We signed Todd Fedoruk and Kurt Sauer. Yep thats it. Fedoruk and Sauer. Now don’t get me wrong, these are servicable players. Feds can actually play some minutes and Sauer is a steady and stable defenseman. But considering who we left on the table to be swooped up(Weller by Minnesota (2yrs 600k per) and Vrbata (3yrs at 3mill per) by Tampa Bay, the greedy bastages who were buying everything in sight) yeah, I am a little disappointed at first look by the return.

So I started looking at the smaller picture, the specifics, if you will, trying to figure out just what happened today. In an interview just days before, GMDM said he was looking for security for the rookies. I had no idea that this would be one of the main focal points of the day of frenzy. I mean, c’mon, we lost 2 defensemen, didn’t you expect to replace BOTH of them? Instead we filled in the job of nannies with attitudes. Our rookies have McGrattan and Fedoruk riding shotgun while they take their first steps into the NHL world. Forgive me if I am not wholly impressed. (just being honest).

Now add in the part where our staff are jumping ship like rats off the Titanic… no matter about Jack and whatsher name… I do not feel like the king of the world. Toc, Kurvers and Malone to TBL in the space of a week.

So July 1st did bubkis for me. Nada, zip, nothing, crappola. Until the annoucement…

COYOTES SIGN FIRST ROUND DRAFT PICKS BOEDKER AND TIKHONOV TO CONTRACTS

Whoa! They are really serious about bringing these rookies into the lineup. I guess nannies-with-attitude inc. is going to have their hands full with KT, Tiki, The Bod, Lisin(still basically a rookie) and most likely Porter joining the sophmores Mules and Hanzal (Carcillo can take care of his own). So there was a very real concern that was addressed in a reasonable manner although I am still not sure Feds is the guy for the job. We just got younger than your average day care center. But having seen these kidlets in action… this announcement just brings out the optimist in me all over again.

Then GMDM took to the airwaves to explain what was done and why (synopsis provided by loyal fan Jenna aka wo4bb)

Maloney stated that Fedoruk will probably average 10-12 minutes per game and he has speed and can skate well. (ok thats the Weller replacement)

He emphasized Mikkel Boedker a lot. He also talked a lot about Porter being the top scorer in college hockey and how smart and fast he was. (ok maybe we get some of Vrbata’s goals back there)

He said the team will have a lot of skill and speed and the toughness will be vital to make sure that other teams don’t take advantage of our young guys. (another reference to the need for the newly formed nannies w/ attitude)

He said come January/February/March he will look into replacing Vrbata if needed. (whew, at least he acknowledges there might be an issue)

He is very happy for Weller who signed with the Wild. He said Weller wanted a one way contract and Maloney was only willing to offer a two-way. ( why not? the guy played well, provided toughness and wasn’t going to cost us as much as Feds ultimately did. Its not like we didn’t pay Bell and Grats full salaries in the AHL last season.)

Ross is currently in Tempe working on a professional training program. He is paying for that with his own money. Maloney said the Coyotes are very excited about him but at 19 he is still very young to be a dman in the NHL. He said Ross will one day be in NHL player and his training camp this year will determine if he stays in Phoenix or goes back to his junior team. (Read this as 1 more attempt by DM to stop us from getting our hopes up about Nick… he ain’t comin this season folks… deal with it and stop tryin to rush the kid)

Maloney stated that he is happy with the free agents they have signed and will continue to look for value for the blueline but will not be pursuing anyone. He said he is letting guys come to him and no guys over 33. He is looking to add skill and grit. *** see my scenario at the end behind the cut***

He was asked if Jokinen will get the A and Maloney said that is up to the Coach. (the opportunity to see the Joker run w/ Donor is worth the price of the season tickets in 08)

On XM radio shortly before the Xtra 910 gig GMDM addressed the Wheeler situation w/ this comment, (the 2nd rd pick we got for losing Blake was used in the deal to trade up to get Tikhonov and we would make that deal everyday of the week). Guess GMDM had his fill of the situation w/ Wheels.

We are going to be the talk of the NHL one way or another. Hopefully we will be a raging success story and actually get into the playoffs on the backs of a bunch of teens and their nannies… or we end up the winners of the Tavares sweepstakes in 2009.

Anyone who foresees THIS lineup going deep into a playoff run is drinking waaay better koolaide than I am. But ya know… we Cinderella’d our way through most of last season, so who knows what will happen, all I know is the defense we have right now… makes a playoff run highly unlikely. We’re expanding Yandle’s role (and most likely our GAA, so we better score a whole lot more than last season) and maybe Jonesy’s too if we don’t get another defenseman.

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