Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny is set to enter the final year of his contract. Typically, teams don’t like having coaches in ‘lame duck’ years although we’ve seen that happen a few times in recent years. The bench boss indicated to PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan that so far, talks about a new contract have strictly been preliminary with the term of an agreement and the fate of his staff being among the elements discussed.
The 49-year-old has been the bench boss for Arizona for the past two seasons and while his 53-90-21 record isn’t overly exciting on the surface, the Coyotes are squarely in the heart of a rebuild. To that end, they’ve been a fairly competitive squad most nights in spite of the fact they haven’t iced the more talented team in most of their games.
Perhaps more importantly, there appears to have been a positive culture established, something both Nick Bjugstad and Troy Stecher acknowledged as a factor in their decisions to return to Arizona as free agents earlier this month. It also likely played a role in them landing Jason Zucker and Alex Kerfoot, two capable forwards, on the open market.
Tourigny negotiated his first contract on his own but indicated that he wants to hire an agent to get this next one finalized. That hasn’t happened yet which should further hammer home that the discussions so far have been more casual. However, Tourigny has clearly indicated to GM Bill Armstrong that he wants to remain with Arizona beyond the 2023-24 campaign and with how they’ve performed under his watch despite the talent mismatch, it seems reasonable to think an extension will get done eventually. Tourigny is comfortable going into the season without a new contract but it shouldn’t get to that point.