Starting today, we’re going to look ahead to the coming season across the Central Division with a quick recap of the offseasons for the Blackhawks’ division opponents. There was a lot of player movement across the division this summer, including in Chicago.
Today we’ll start at the bottom of the division (above only the Blackhawks) with the Arizona Coyotes. They will likely have one of the top prospects in all of hockey, Logan Cooley, making his case for the Calder Trophy this season. And they have some other young players who stepped up last season and made them more interesting than in previous years. But can they climb high enough to be a playoff consideration? We’ll see!
Head Coach: André Tourigny
2022-23 Record: 28-40-14 (70 points — 7th in the Central)
2022-23 Offensive Leaders
Goals: Clayton Keller (37)
Assists: Keller (49)
Points: Keller (86)
Current Cap Hit: $79,596,310 ($3,903,690 available cap space)
Roster Additions: Sean Durzi, Jason Zucker, Alex Kerfoot, Nick Bjugstad, Troy Stecher and Matt Dumba
Roster Losses: Christian Fischer, Connor Mackey, Bokondji Imama
Prospect Pool Rank (The Athletic): 12
Key Rookies/Prospects: Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, Danil But, Dmitriy Simashev
Outlook
This appears to be stacking up as a fascinating year for the Coyotes. Their young group of forwards is largely under contact into the future; they only have three players — Jason Zucker, Jason Boyd and Liam O’Brien — heading to UFA this coming summer up front. They’re young, fast and have plenty of skill.
However, when we look at their blue line we find the Coyotes do not have a single defenseman on their NHL roster signed beyond this year. Zero. So they’re going to have a lot of guys playing for money this season.
