SalarySwishSalarySwish
Avatar

Highsman13

Membre depuis
19 juill. 2019
Équipe favorite
Coyotes de l'Arizona
Messages dans les forums
48
Messages par jour
0.0
Forum: Arizona Coyotes2 mars à 19 h 54
Anyone taking one quick look at the Coyotes CapFriendly page will notice 3 things right off the bat:

1)The sheer amount of draft capital the team has

2)LTIR contracts (which is how that draft capital was acquired)

3)The future status of the defense core, which is what this discussion is about.

The Coyotes have 4 RFA Defenseman under contract, all of which are arbitration eligible this offseason. On the flip side of things, they have 4 UFA Defenseman under contracts that all expire this year. Plus, all of their blue-chip defenseman are a few years away from joining the big club, leading to a strange short-term and long-term timeline. This post is to discuss what I would do if I was GMBA (Which I'm not, trust me, no lies here)

So first off, I will discuss the timeline in terms of the Coyotes blue-chip D prospects, as it will provide lots of context as to why the team put themselves in this cap situation to begin with and what I will be discussing below in regards to RFAs.

We will take it back to 2019, marking the end of a Chayka regime that did sizeable damage to the Coyotes with the way it ended, and examine every (relevant) DMen the Coyotes have drafted since.

2019
R1, 9OA Victor Soderstrom - Expiring RFA contract, ended up being a complete bust of a pick. Chayka traded up to draft him too, which makes it sting even more. Even with injuries earlier in the year and a need for short-term callups, in a 3 game stretch Soderstrom was the healthy scratch every single game with goes to show you what the team thinks of his future here. If they do re-sign, would be a 1 year 2 way deal that leads into the last year of RFA, otherwise I wouldn't be surprised if they trade his rights for a late pick to a team that takes a flyer on him.

2020
R4, 111OA Mitchell Miller - Yikes.

2021
R2, 60OA JJ Moser - Discussed in more detail in later section.

2022
R1, 29OA Maveric Lamoureux - One of the Coyotes bluechip D prospects. When he was drafted, he was always viewed as a project that would take a long time to develop in the Quebec Junior League. When drafted, he was listed at 6'7 with a massive reach - if he put all the talent together and developed properly, this guy is an easy shutdown defenseman. Since being drafted, his development has gone amazing, barring 1 injury, enough to warrant a 3 year ELC. - if I had to guess, he'll be in Tucson for the entirety of this season and next season, and the soonest possible he is in the NHL is in 2025-2026 at age 22.

R2, 36OA Artyom Duda - Russian DMan who went through a bit of a limbo with trying to find a team to play on, looks like he has a solid chance at being an NHL regular at some time in the future. I suspect next season he signs with some minor league team somewhere and a year or two after gets an ELC and starts in the AHL and maybe he becomes a nice jack of all trades DMan. Is probably a good trade chip too if it really came down to it.

R3, 94OA Jeremy Langlois - Admittedly I haven't heard the most about him, but based on what I have heard in 2 years he'll be in the AHL.

R6, 163OA Maksymilian Szuber - A Polish prospect who played in Germany, this guy has made quite the jump and made a name for himself within the Yotes organization. Took massive strides in his development last season, and does not have any hockey background, he started playing at 9 just because he thought it was cool. He has already signed a 3 year ELC with the team, and is a name to watch out for - he can either flame out or become a solid NHL regular, his development is going to be interesting to watch.

2023
R1, 6OA Dmitriy Simashev - The out of nowhere pick that shocked the 2023 draft pundits, and what a lot of people declared to be a waste of a pick has turned out to be quite the opposite. At age 19/20, being in the KHL, the 2nd best league in the world, he's already made a name for himself as a really good defensive defenseman. His point totals are lower on paper, but he has hit multiple posts and KHL scoring is lower than other leagues in general. Long reach and a very good skater, at bare minimum it looks like he'll be a solid 2nd pairing defenseman the day he arrives.... which is the caveat. The soonest he can come over is the 25-26 season. He will absolutely be on the team from day 1 when he signs a contract, but 2 years from now, the team makeup will look way different., so who knows what his true role on the D pairing will be come that time.

R4, 102OA Terrell Goldsmith - This guy is never going to make the NHL, we memed super hard about it in the Coyotes fan discord because he's entirely just a brute who fights and happens to play defenseman. His nickname is "Oil Rig" which is incredibly badass. His entire job is to protect guys at prospect tournaments. Im listing him despite him being irrelevant just because Terrell "Oil Rig" Goldsmith is a GOAT hockey name contender.

R5, 160OA Justin Kipkie - Very early on, but an interesting prospect to watch. Good at moving the puck, at this rate will get on the AHL team in a year or 2 at least.

While not a draft pick, I will mention Vladislav Kolyachonok, who was acquired from the Panthers as part of the cap dump trade to take Anton Stralman's contract. He is an AHL/NHL tweener and will most likely stay that way.

That is a LOT to digest, but the main takeaway is that at minumum, if everything goes well, these guys are 2-3 years away from helping the club out in the big leagues. Another thing to keep in mind is that as of writing this (about a week before the TDL), the team has 34 picks over the next 3 drafts, with most of those being top 100 picks; who knows what the Defenseman prospect glop will look like in that time period.

So, onto the next topic - the Trade Deadline itself for the UFA Dmen.

I don't expect the Coyotes to do anything major expect trade away some of their pending UFAs. I won't go into any forward trades as that's not the topic of this post, so for UFA defenseman, the Coyotes have:
Travis Dermott - I don't think they'll trade him and instead just keep him for the rest of the season to be a warm body for the D core.
Troy Stecher - This is weird because they traded him at the TDL last year to Calgary and he re-signed, so it feels kind of strange to trade him a 2nd time but maybe they can get a 6th or 7th for him. Personally, I'd keep him to ride out the season.
Josh Brown - Big physical guy that GM's get super hung on as a "playoff type guy". Probably gets a 6th or 7th.
Matt Dumba- The interesting one here and the most valuable (sadly). He has sucked this season but has high value based on name. I do not think they are getting a 1st which is apparently what GMBA is asking (which I doubt personally), but I can see a team giving up a 3rd or 4th for him at 50% retained (1.95M). He has been negative value on the ice, so even a 7th will suffice as a net postive for the team.

They aren't going to get any major deals, just a small amount of assets in return for a team getting depth for the playoffs. I could see them maybe trading the rights to Soderstrom or Kolyachonok to a team at the TDL as part of a bigger trade, but I won't speculate on that. At minimum they should keep 1 of them just to ride out the season.

Now the main topic, and most interesting one given the above context: The 4 RFA Defensemen.

Having 4 arbitration eligible RFA defensemen needing deals at the exact same time is a very unique situation - one the Coyotes voluntarily put them into. With most of their main prospects being 2 years away, having 4 at the same time allowed them plenty of leeway contract wise and really seeing who they want to keep for the future. The team has been very tight-lipped about the contract situations, and the team reporters haven't said anything either, so this is all speculation based on what I've seen on the ice - AKA, my opinion.

I'll start with the guy that is absolutely a long-term guy, JJ Moser. Acquired in the draft with a pick given to the team in the Andrew Ladd trade with the Islanders (go read the trade forum post on CapFriendly when it happened, its amazing how the Coyotes apparently lost a deal where they gave up nothing and got all sorts of assets for free.) and has been an NHL regular since day 1. This guy is a perfect jack of all trades dman - Need a penalty killed? He's on your first or second unit. Powerplay? First or second unit. Even Strength? Top 3 TOI every single game. Guy can do it all and has not had any major injury problems, a reliable rock in the D core which every team needs. Ideally he's your 3D or 4D who can fill in on the top pair in a pinch if needed, and the Coyotes have been stretched thin on talent so he's been top pairing pretty much his entire tenure despite being on an ELC. If it were my decision, I would give him a 5-6 year contract in the 3.6-4.2M AAV range. That takes him to his late 20's, and fits perfectly with the timeline of the other defensive prospects.

Next up, Sean Durzi. Acquired from the Kings last offseason with one of our FIVE second round picks in 2024 (gee, wonder why they made that trade), Durzi has had an up and down - but mostly positive - season. He has been firm on the top power play unit that has been inconsistent but not really due to him. Even strength could use some work, but at bare minimum he has shown himself to be a power play quarterback who can work really well at even strength with a reliable defensive dman (which the Coyotes do not have this year thanks to the 4 UFA's being not very good). If it were me, I would give Durzi a 4 year contract in the 2.5-3M AAV range. This takes him to 29, and they can extend him from there if he becomes a mainstay, or at bare minimum, he can eat up PP minutes while the other blue chip D prospects work the 2nd unit and get more NHL experience - and maybe depending on the teams situation with their cap and in the standings, can be a nice deadline pickup for some other team for a big cost.

Juuso Valimaki is an interesting one. Last year he was a waiver pickup and looked like he could be a mainstay as a 2nd pairing guy, kind of like JJ Moser. This year? He is not as good. Not a net negative, just did not sustain what we saw last year. He was also injured in a fluke accident (puck straight to the mouth from a slapshot against Dallas), but overall took a step back. If this is the Valimaki we get for the future, he's a fine 3rd pairing guy - which isn't terrible, just not as good as the team thought it could be. If he performs more like last season, he's also a 3D or 4D. I would give him a 3 year contract in the 1.25-1.65 million AAV range. He fills a short term need of holding one of the 7 defenseman slots, and if it comes down to it can be extended as a UFA. If not, in his last season, depending on the team's contract, cap and standings situation, will be a nice deadline asset.

Finally, Michael Kesselring. Acquired in the trade with Edmonton giving them Nick Bjugstad (who re-signed with us for 2 seasons), Kesselring has cemented himself on the team for at least the next season. Nobody quite knew what his ceiling was going to be, and that he had some consistency problems while in Edmonton's org, but he has had himself a solid season in his rookie year. Right now he is a solid 3rd pairing guy who has been able to play 2nd pairing without much of a problem. His even-strength play is the most impressive to me as a rookie. While he does have some off nights and some struggles, I really do think he could develop as a solid 2nd pairing jack of all trades guy. I would re-sign him on a 1 year deal which still makes him an RFA in the 1.4-1.6 million AAV range.

This is why I think the Coyotes cap situation is unique - the 4 RFA Dmen they do have fill in the lineup as solid middle pairing guys. Which isn't a bad thing, but in terms of gettning a Stanley Cup, these guys are complementary pieces as opposed to core pieces. JJ Moser is the only one who should absolutely 100% be on the team for the next several seasons - the other guys will get a nice pay raise, but may not be on the version of the Coyotes that are contenders in the future. However, given the short-term situation, the org can really see if that's the case.

This has been a VERY long write up, so thanks for reading it. It'll be very interesting to see what they do with this in the offseason - and given that they will likely have around 36 picks across the next 3 drafts, come offseason time they could absolutely take a big swing for a guy with the sheer amount of draft capital they have.
Forum: Arizona Coyotes28 juin 2023 à 22 h 38
Besides from entertainment value alone from the internet scouts behind keyboards who think they know more than fully funded scouting departments who do this for a living, there are 3 main reasons why:

The Coyotes are one of the only teams to have a full time scout in Russia, and have lots of boots on the ground in regards to scouting in the region in general. Given how a lot of teams didn't really scout Russia based on the current political climate within the country, the fact that the team felt confident enough to draft two players from the SAME team with their two top twelve picks shows just how much of slam dunk picks they think these two are.

I love the positional value of these two. The team has 3.5 legit NHL Dmen on their roster (Moser, Valimaki, Durzi, Brown) and 3 prospects who may have a chance at doing something someday (Soderstrom, Kolyachonok, Kesselring) and even then they are not top pairing guys in the slightest. The defenseman prospect pool is completely barren with no blue chip guys, and Simashev is going to fill that void. As for But, a goal scoring power forward is always going to be in demand, especially during the playoffs.

And finally, mock drafts and general consensus and big boards mean jack squat. I don't care about trade downs or rankings or whatever, the Coyotes thought that these two were their guys and they took them, which I respect. Bill Armstrong has a proven scouting record and the organization has many veteran scouts on their staff, I'm putting my faith in the guys who do it for a living and the team that spends money to do this stuff than whatever some guy watching 2 minute clips says online. I am very excited to follow these two and can't wait to see them in the desert.