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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Goalies

BRZ
Telly
(Montoya will have to prove he’s goalie enough to manhandle the AHL before he can steal Telly’s spot and if they are really expecting Ilya to be a 60+ game workhorse, it does no good to Monty or Tordjy’s development to sit every night waiting for Breezy to let them get a game)

It has been said that Gistedt will be coming over in the summer *Gee is stuck behind a hot goalie in Europe and isn’t getting much development time there… does the 3 headed goalie monster rear its ugly head in Phoenix again? or is there a trade brewing? or are the Sundogs going to get a superior goalie who needs some playing time? scary thought is McVicar just picked up the President’s trophy down there so the playing time might be a wee bit limited there too* Although Gee is over 20, he still might be subject to IIHF rules that prevent him from staying in NAmerica at the minor league level… need some clarification on that I guess. Anyone?

DEFENSEMEN
Jovo
Morris
Ballard
Michalek
Boynton (unless some team makes GMDM an offer he would be dumb to refuse… Nick still has a lot of life and leadership left in him)
??? new kid = Ahnelov (from Sweden) or if we get one of Bogosian or Schenn they could just be NHL ready and take this spot since neither Jones (not enough offense) or Yandle (not enough defense) grabbed the job and made it their spot.

*Rumor control has been busy placing Redden on the team - do we run 6 top quality Dmen and let the baby Dmen mature in the A? do we upgrade our 5th man slot (someone will have to leave) and still run baby D in the 6th spot? or is this a vicious lie created to make us insane over the summer?*

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Well we all knew it was coming. GMDM said he was standing pat unless something just about knocked his socks off. Well coming from New York city he musta brought a man crush on Montoya with him cause I see nothing else about this trade that accounts for doing it.

We gave NY our beloved Sjo our beleagured Lenny and threw in the lovable and feisty Bam Bam in return for lil Hoss and Monty (and depending on which site you read there’s a pick in there, going some way, conditionally).

I realize that as a 1st round pick (and one we moved up to get) more was expected of Fast Freddie and that it never really materialised but I was hoping we’d keep the boy for one more shot. But there’s a lot of talent coming up in the ranks and the lovable Swede was going to be in even more of a dog fight to stay out of the press box than ever before. I hope the change of scenery can do for Freddie, what dawg days in the desert could not. Good luck to you and godspeed, Weeble, you will be missed greatly.

Rather than lose Grats to that horrible re-entry waiver rule, he was allowed to languish down in the A. I only wish the Bammer’s hands were as soft as his head is hard. The kid gives his all each and every shift. Protector and big hearted lug that he is, we will all miss his courage and fire. With Avery already agitating the hell out of the east coast there really doesn’t seem to be a place for Josh on the NYR bench but the Rangers have obviously seen what happens to them when that moron is out of the lineup and decided to get a backup. Josh will most likely sit on the farm due to not having much else to contribute besides pugilistic talent. But who knows, he is still young maybe he can be taught to crease camp and earn some type of offensive distiguishment that way? Who the hell would try to get him out of a crease? Anyway… Good luck to you too Bammer and thanks for all the spark you provided for us.

Ah Lenny. At least you will be reunited with the goalie coach who understood how to get through to you. Underappreciated (your record when you managed to get a game wasn’t that bad) and badly managed (thrown to the freakin wolves in a series of ugly goalie dramas) you are still a guilty secret crush for me. I hope you fare well back there on the other coast. Fast glove and smooth lateral movement to you bucko.

So GMDM finally got his boy. Montoya has been brought into the Yotie fold. Creates a very interesting tandem down in the A. The next 2 years should be very interesting on our goalie front as Tordjy and Monty battle for top dog honors. With the Breezy/Telly combo working out so awesomely and Tell is signed for another year, looks like we finally have some good depth in the cupboard for flexibility. So welcome to the family Monty ( I hope you are half as good a GMDM thinks you could turn out to be).

Last but not least Lil Hoss. Forever in the shadows of the awesomeness that is Marian, this poor guy needed a break like nobody’s business. He got one in this change of scenery. Hopefully Marcel Hossa will jump right in and find his niche and hopefully a wee bit of a scoring touch. Not much to look at as far as offense this season, Marcel does possess a nice defensive edge so maybe we won’t feel the pinch of losing our defensive Swede so much. Come on in Marcel we got plenty of love for the underdog to go round.

Ack!!! Boy did we stink. From net to net we played like shite. The Preds came out of the gate like startled quail. Players everywhere! Seemed like they had extra men on the ice they were so fast and furious.

The first period was all classic execution and hard charging work… too bad none of it was our execution or work. I can barely type I am still so mad about the poor showing we made last night. The next person who says Hanzal is too slow and doesn’t contribute enough offense is gonna get a severe keister kicking from me. We miss that big body. Look at our record since he’s been out. The system in place utilized every line a specific way, without that big Czech playin defensive center for us we have a hole, well, the size of Texas.

Hello goodbye…

Vandy did not look too out of place in his debut. The hard workin brawler managed his 5 minutes of TOI quite well (meaning no huge faux pas) but no fighting or even huge hits either.

No one played exceptionally in this one. ( Dwin gave it his best shot for more minutes than anyone ) Bryz! wasn’t the only one stinkin up the 1st period, those 3 goals he gave up on 8 shots? Take a good look at how they were scored. (Yes, Breezy is out of position and can’t control his rebounds but with the team standing still just watching Preds swarm the net the big Russian has a hard time knowing where the hell to focus) Oy Vey 3 - 0 and The Cats chase Bryz! out of the net.

So anyway, Telly comes in and our captain puts on his hard hat during our second PP opportunity. (as Doan goes… so does the team?) The Donor starts our come back with a huge PP goal to end the miserable period.

We look stronger and faster in the second (we are just behind Dallas as a second period performer) and Winnie goes hunting the honey pot in Ellis’ kitchen(sweet move thru the circles and a quick slider thru the posts). Momentum baby! That fickle she devil switches to our side as Dwin gets rewarded for his determination. 3 - 2 Preds.

The Preds aren’t quite sure what to make of this whole turn around and our big gun takes advantage to tie it up Jovo scorzes unassisted from the blue with a laser canon. 3 - 3 tie game!(it’s the ice buckos…trust me on this… you got the good ice for 2 periods… its definitely a factor in our home record)

So we head into the third. Aw man do we have to? Dammmitttallltohell! The Sybyl team is back. Standin around, thumbs in unmentionable places as Telly gets handed his ass 23 seconds apart. 

5 - 3 now and Preds all over the place. Might as well pull the goalie at this rate… oh wait! We do just that… 6 - 3 Preds final to add insult to injury. PS… every player I warned you about in the preview…. scored…

The single most disappointing game of the season in my eyes. We didn’t work hard, we hung our goalies out in the wind, our PP went 1 - 5. Shall I continue the litany? I didn’t think so. Siiiiggghhhh… well this homestand was another exercise in futility…. goods news! we head out to Dallas tonight… ROAD TRIP! (a very lucky fan gets to head out with the team for this one) bet its gonna be a quiet plane ride though…

We gotta pull outta this and quick… a slide at this point of the year could take us out of contention fast. But I have faith. This has been a miracle of a season so far. We have rarely lost 2 games in a row much less 3.  Hell of a ride baby Yotes, hell of a ride. Let’s head into Dallas and let former Stars Kapi and TQ have a shot at thumbing their noses at their old team.

Rock n Roll Boys!

GO COYOTES!

~photos from AP/Paul Connors and David Kadlubowski/The Arizona Republic~

onyxstarr@coyoteshipcheck.com

Well…. WOW! The waiting is over, no more 3 headed net monster. David Aebischer has been placed on waivers.

~photo from Emmanuel Lozano/The Arizona Republic~

No official word from the front office at this time but after seeing all the rumors (from Eklund to TSN.ca) I wrote to Mossie for confirmation and got 2 small lines… of confirmation simply stating Abby has been waived. Now what that means. Well a) he clears and is let go b) he clears and is kept up w/ the big club to be used in a trade down the road c) he clears and most likely displaces Lenny in SA d) he gets snapped up by whomever was courting him when we first aquired him. Lots of talk from the fans in the goalie black hole known as LA. They have the singular honor of cursing more than their fair share of goalies to the injury pit. We just doomed goalies to failure and obscurity, last year more goalies ended up sidelined due to injury there, seemed like nearly every month of the friggin season a goalie went down in LA. I have to wonder if Abby, tired of being the odd man (only 1 start so far in 7 games) asked to be waived? just a thought…

With the nearly miraculous recovery of Zbynek Michalek (out with broken hand b4 season start) and the return of Josh ‘bambam’ Gratton from his conditioning stint there is no more room at the inn. So FreddyIV was also waived and is reporting to SA Rampage. I guess this means the BigKids line gets to keep Weller. YEA! Grats comes back and takes the heat off of Carcillo (the refs will have to split their attention and worry about BamBam and won’t be able to focus so much on Carci) and Weller gets to stay and polish up his crease camping (seriously, this kid has the size and guts to be a poor man’s Holmstrom).

So the other shoe has finally dropped and it is probably for the good. Now maybe Jovo can stop playing with the puck (Z usually brings it up ice or makes that first pass w/ out it goin straight to the opposition) and just maybe we will finally get to see JV’s point production rise as he stops worrying about his back end being covered (he knows he can’t cover his own faux pas well) and Bally can go back to playin on line with Boynton and doin his aggressive/assertive numbers. With Jonesy and DMo creating their own little chemistry our blueline might actually look as good on the ice as it often does on paper.