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Coyotes Notes: Sale Vote, Raty, Jenik

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In an article from Barry Bloom of Sportico, the NHL Executive Committee has approved the relocation of the Arizona Coyotes to Salt Lake City. Although this reaffirms the momentum of relocation from the desert, the NHL Board of Governors, which comprises all 32 teams, still has to vote on the matter.

There is still plenty of work to be done on the rumored sale, as recent reporting from Saturday illustrated that the relocation would become much more complicated. Coming from John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports, Arizona’s current owner, Alex Meruelo, will retain the intellectual property rights to the Coyotes franchise, and will be given a five-year window to build an arena and bring an NHL franchise back to the state.

Nevertheless, although the league has yet to make an official statement on the matter, the sale process will now go to the desk of the Board of Governors. With earlier reporting suggesting that the sale could become official as soon as April 18th, the finality of the Coyotes-saga is in sight.

Other Coyotes notes:

  • After being recalled on an emergency basis on April 9th, the Coyotes have reassigned forward Jan Jenik to their AHL affiliate, the Tucson Roadrunners. Over his current stint at the NHL level, Jenik suited up in four games for Arizona, tallying one assist in total while averaging 8:23 of ice time per night. Headed back to Tucson, Jenik has scored 16 goals and 36 points in 54 games for the Roadrunners this season, as he will now assist them on their 2024 Calder Cup playoff run.
  • Likely making his NHL debut tonight, the Coyotes have recalled forward Aku Raty from the AHL. In what appears to be a reward for the former 151st overall pick, Raty has become a solid performer in his first season in North America. Playing the entire year with the Roadrunners up to this point, Raty has scored 14 goals and 43 points in 54 games and is currently leading the team after Josh Doan was recalled to the NHL level.

Central Notes: Coyotes Relocation, Neighbours, Krug, Mrázek, Mišiak

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Short of an official announcement from the league, the Coyotes are relocating to Salt Lake City next season and being sold to Smith Entertainment Group, the ownership of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, with the league as an intermediary. GM Bill Armstrong traveled to Edmonton yesterday to inform the team of the relocation while on their road trip, and players and staff are expected to travel to Utah sometime next week.

Over the next few days, when a sale announcement comes, it will become clear how complex this transaction will be. One rumored piece of the sale appears to be set in stone, per John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports. Current Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo will indeed retain the intellectual rights to the franchise as part of the sale. If he can get an arena built within five years and various other benchmarks are met, he’ll have first right of refusal for a Phoenix-area team and can trigger an expansion draft. In doing so, he’d need to return the $1B he’ll receive from the league for the franchise this offseason as an expansion fee.

Other tidbits out of the Central Division:

  • Blues breakout winger Jake Neighbours has likely played his last game of the season, interim head coach Drew Bannister said Saturday (via NHL.com’s Lou Korac). The 22-year-old is dealing with an upper-body injury he sustained on April 6 against the Sharks. He’s missed the last three games and is on track to miss St. Louis’ final two after they were eliminated from playoff contention last night. It puts a bow on a good campaign for the 2020 first-round pick, who set career highs with 27 goals, 11 assists and 38 points in 77 games while creeping into top-six minutes (15:42 per game). While his nearly 19% shooting rate is likely unsustainable, he’s been steadily increasing his shot volume – averaging 1.88 per game this season compared to 1.23 last year. He’ll be eligible to sign an extension beginning July 1, with his entry-level contract set to expire in 2025. Bannister also said that defenseman Torey Krug won’t suit up in tomorrow’s game against the Kraken but could return for their final game of the season in Dallas on Wednesday. The left-shot offensive defenseman is day-to-day with an upper-body injury sustained on April 10 against the Blackhawks, already keeping him out of one game.
  • A pair of European Blackhawks players found themselves in the news today, including starting goaltender Petr Mrázek. He told reporters today, including Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times, that he’ll join the Czech national team at the conclusion of the season in advance of this year’s World Championship in Prague and Ostrava. The 32-year-old has only suited up at the Worlds twice, once as a teenager in a backup role in 2012 and again as the starter in 2017, posting a .881 SV% and 2.47 GAA in four outings. It was quite a strong season for Mrázek in the Chicago crease, managing to stay healthy and start a career-high 51 games. He did so quite competently, recording a .906 SV% behind a leaky Blackhawks blue line that resulted in him accumulating 4.7 goals saved above average, his highest mark in eight years. He or Ducks up-and-comer Lukáš Dostál will likely occupy the starter’s crease for Czechia at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy. Additionally, 2023 second-round pick Martin Mišiak signed an ATO with AHL Rockford today and will make his North American professional debut. The Slovak winger spent the 2023-24 campaign with the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League, racking up 23 goals and 47 points in 60 games with a -14 rating.

Coyotes, NHL Have Made “Significant Progress” On Salt Lake City Relocation

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Friday: Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan both report that Coyotes players were informed today that relocation to Salt Lake City is indeed happening.  Morgan suggests an official announcement could come on April 17th, the date of Arizona’s final home game.

Wednesday: The Coyotes, in conjunction with the NHL, have made “significant progress” today on an agreement to relocate the team to Salt Lake City and sell the club to Smith Entertainment Group, owners of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports. The league reportedly sent a memo to its Board of Governors today after a report from Seravalli this morning said the NHL was preparing a contingency plan for a Coyotes relocation, including two distinct schedule matrices. A relocation is not final, but reports indicate the tide is turning that way.

Neither the Coyotes nor the league, who have routinely been quick to respond to developments in their arena saga as they become public, have commented on today’s reports. Subsequent reporting from ESPN’s Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski says the NHL would act as an intermediary between Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo and Ryan Smith’s SEG in a sale, purchasing the club from Meruelo for $1B before selling to SEG at an increased $1.3B. The $300MM difference would be split among the league’s other 31 owners as a relocation fee, less than half of the $650MM fee Seattle Kraken ownership paid for an expansion franchise in 2021.

Seravalli says that Coyotes players have possibly “been informed that something of a ’verbal’ agreement is in place to relocate to Salt Lake City” but has “received pushback on that characterization of talks.” Wyshynski reports that the team has not formally informed its players of any sale agreement and that they’re following relocation developments through social media. Regardless, an official announcement on relocation is likely to come before the end of the month, per Kaplan and Wyshynski.

There is no indication that a Salt Lake City relocation would end Meruelo’s bid for a plot of land in north Phoenix that’s set to be awarded at a public auction on June 27. Kaplan, Seravalli and Wyshynski all report that “Meruelo would be first in line to purchase an NHL expansion team should the league decide to return to Arizona,” a decision that would be contingent on a suitably located arena to avoid the attendance issues that plagued the team when they operated out of Gila River Arena in Glendale from 2003 to 2022. Meruelo could also retain the branding and naming rights to the Coyotes franchise as part of this transaction, per Seravalli, which could be applied to an expansion franchise after the north Phoenix plot is developed.

Upon relocating to Salt Lake, the franchise formerly known as the Coyotes would play 2024-25 out of the Delta Center, which is shared with the Jazz. However, much like the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where the Islanders played from 2014 to 2020, the arena isn’t optimized for hockey and has significant sightline issues at either end of the rink. Kaplan and Wyshynski say that “NHL leadership has made it clear to Smith they would need hockey-specific renovations for the Delta Center to be a permanent NHL home,” something Smith has agreed to carry out. Utah lawmakers have also approved the construction of a new downtown venue in advance of the 2034 Winter Olympics, which will be optimized for use by both the Jazz and an NHL team, although it still needs to be approved by Utah Governor Spencer Cox.

Over the past few months, Smith has been quite forward and public about his desire to acquire an NHL franchise, including submitting a formal request to initiate an expansion process. Speaking over the All-Star break, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said that “the Utah expression of interest has been the most aggressive” among prospective new markets.

This looks to be the first relocation the NHL’s had in over a decade. The most recent was in 2011 when the Atlanta Thrashers were abruptly sold to True North Sports and Entertainment and became the second iteration of the Winnipeg Jets. The first relocated to Phoenix in 1996 to become the Coyotes in search of more optimal financial conditions. While financial instability and ownership concerns have continued to plague the Coyotes franchise, the NHL’s presence in the market has been an undeniable positive, helping develop Phoenix into an area with multiple elite youth hockey programs and spurring the growth of the sport in the southwest United States.

The Coyotes were initially a consistent playoff team after arriving in the desert, but they’ve made the postseason only four times since moving out of downtown Phoenix to Glendale. Three of them came consecutively between 2010 and 2012, culminating in a Western Conference Final loss to the Kings, the eventual Stanley Cup champion. It was the only time the Jets/Coyotes franchise had reached the “final four” rounds since being absorbed from the collapse of the WHA in 1979.

For the past two seasons, the franchise has played out of the 4,600-seat Mullett Arena on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe. Meant as a temporary move after the City of Glendale opted not to renew their lease agreement in 2022, Meruelo then planned on building an arena and entertainment district within Tempe city limits near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The proposal required a public vote to pass, however, and a May 2023 referendum failed to green-light the project, leaving them back at square one.

The Yotes’ now-likely departure comes as their on-ice performance was beginning to improve after a years-long rebuild. They ended up far south of the playoff demarcation line but had a strong start to the season and were hovering around playoff position well into December. They’ve gotten strong offensive production from their current core of Clayton Keller, Matias Maccelli and Nick Schmaltz yet again, high-end goaltending from breakout performer Connor Ingram, and have high-end prospects on the way led by winger Dylan Guenther. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler ranked their prospect pool as the ninth-best in the league in February.

Central Notes: Coyotes, Zuccarello, Gaudreau, Krug, Neighbours

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A relocation to Salt Lake City for 2024-25 seems the overwhelmingly likely end to a years-long solution to the Coyotes’ long-term future in Arizona. Reporting yesterday indicated significant progress had been made between Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo, the NHL, and prospective Salt Lake owner Smith Entertainment Group on an agreement to sell the club. Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli and Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman also told PHNX Sports that a move to Utah had a “90 to 95 percent chance” of going through.

What’s less certain is a timeline. Speaking on “Insider Trading” on Thursday, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun said an official announcement coming immediately after the Coyotes’ season ends next week is “a little hopeful.” Out of the multiple reports that circulated yesterday, a few suggested the sale to SEG could be announced as soon as April 18. When the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg in 2011, the most recent instance of NHL relocation, the sale wasn’t made official until late May. However, LeBrun says that’s too far down a potential timeline. If the league hasn’t confirmed a move to Salt Lake before then, it’s likely not happening this offseason, and another season in Arizona at Tempe’s Mullett Arena is likely in store.

Other news and notes from the Central:

  • Wild forwards Frédérick Gaudreau and Mats Zuccarello did not travel with the team on their West Coast road trip due to personal reasons and are both doubtful tomorrow against the Golden Knights, head coach John Hynes told Michael Russo of The Athletic. Considering there’s a possibility they may travel and join the team in Las Vegas tomorrow, it’s unlikely they’ll miss the entirety of Minnesota’s three-game road swing, their last of the season. Regardless of their availability, 2022 first-round pick Liam Öhgren will make his NHL debut, said Hynes, although it may impact where he plays in the lineup. He’s currently projected to occupy a third-line role at left wing alongside Marat Khusnutdinov and Vinni Lettieri. Gaudreau, 30, has struggled mightily in the first season of a five-year, $10.5MM extension, limited to five goals and 15 points in 65 games while posting a team-worst -21 rating. Meanwhile, Zuccarello is chugging along in his age-36 season, still sitting just south of point-per-game territory with 62 in 68 appearances.
  • The Blues could be without defenseman Torey Krug and winger Jake Neighbours tomorrow against the Hurricanes due to upper-body injuries. Krug is listed as questionable, while Neighbours has already been ruled out, interim head coach Drew Bannister told Lou Korac of NHL.com and The Hockey News. The former has missed a couple of games recently, sitting out last weekend’s contest against the Sharks due to illness and missing a late-March contest against the Senators with a lower-body injury. He’s been hot lately when in the lineup, recording three points in his last three games. He’s got 39 in 77 appearances, tying last season for his worst points-per-game rate since 2015. It’s been a more successful campaign for the 22-year-old Neighbours, who’s broken out for 27 goals and 38 points in 77 games in his sophomore campaign.

NHL Drafting Contingency Plan If Coyotes Relocate Before Next Season

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The NHL is preparing a contingency plan in the event the Arizona Coyotes relocate to Salt Lake City as soon as this offseason, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports.

Multiple sources indicate the league is drafting two different schedule matrices for next season, one with the Yotes remaining in Tempe’s Mullett Arena and the other with the franchise moving to the Delta Center in Salt Lake, Seravalli says. Relocation is a less likely outcome after the plot of land the Coyotes intend to use for a new arena and entertainment district in north Phoenix was officially listed for auction last week, but Seravalli reports majority owner Alex Meruelo is “intimately involved” in a backup plan that would sell control of the franchise to Ryan Smith, majority owner of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, before the June 27 land auction.

Per Seravalli, the Smith Entertainment Group would spend over $1.2B to acquire the franchise, including a relocation fee distributed to the league’s other 31 owners. Meruelo could still get paid for his majority stake at a valuation north of $1B after purchasing the franchise at a valuation of $300MM in 2019, a figure Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro reported last week that Meruelo was seeking in preliminary discussions to sell the club.

However, if no sale is announced before the end of May, that’s a nearly surefire sign that the Yotes will remain at the 4,600-capacity Tempe venue for 2024-25. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly has said that “waiting until a June land auction date would likely ensure the Coyotes will play at least one more season at Mullett Arena.”

Even in the overwhelmingly likely event that Meruelo wins the June land auction, that’s not a guarantee this franchise remains in Arizona past next season, Seravalli says. The Phoenix area won’t be without an NHL club for long, though, as indicated repeatedly by the league in recent months. Sources said to Seravalli that part of an agreement to sell the team “could include language that would allow Meruelo to ‘reactivate’ the Coyotes franchise in future years, including name and trademarks, if a new arena is built and terms and conditions of the agreement with the NHL are met.” That would pave the way for the Coyotes to start fresh with an expansion draft after the development is built, perhaps bringing hockey back to Arizona before the end of the decade.

All indications point to Meruelo’s (and the league’s) preference to bypass relocation altogether, keeping the team at Mullett until the proposed new arena is finished, which would likely be for the 2027-28 season. That would also leave Salt Lake City open as an expansion market rather than a relocation one, a more financially lucrative option for owners.

Evening Snapshots: Coyotes, Blue Jackets, Acciari

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For the past two decades, the Arizona Coyotes have been looking for a long-term home for the franchise. Originally moving to Phoenix from Winnipeg in 1996, the team played at the America West Center until 2003, when they made the move to Gila River Arena before finally landing at Mullett Arena at the start of the 2022-23 NHL season. With a desperate need to find a long-term arena, the Coyotes are once again locked in a battle with several local governments to get funding.

Although two artificial deadlines have come and passed, Frank Seravalli of The Daily Faceoff wrote today that an answer could come within the next few weeks, and potentially as early as the upcoming weekend. In the article, Seravalli listed three possibilities still on the table for the resolution: break ground on a publicly funded parcel of land, sell the team to secure private funding in the Phoenix Metro area or move the team to Salt Lake City, UT.

Being the most interesting option of the three, the idea of moving or creating a team in Salt Lake City has picked up steam in the last few weeks, especially with Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith requesting the initiation of a formal expansion process on January 24th. While missing the playoffs in 17 of 26 seasons, a bankruptcy, and multiple different ownership changes, the idea of the Coyotes moving north to Utah may become a very realistic possibility in the near future.

Other snapshots:

  • Although they will not be hosting the 2025 Winter Classic, reports are alluding to the idea that the Columbus Blue Jackets may be hosting a Stadium Series game as soon as next season (Article Link). Being one of only a handful of teams not to host an outdoor game up to this point, the Blue Jackets appear set to host an outdoor game at Ohio Stadium, home of the Ohio State Buckeyes football program. Although nothing has been confirmed yet for the 2024-25 NHL season, the article indicates that NHL representatives were seen surveying the property during Ohio State’s game against the Michigan State Spartans on November 11th.
  • During the team’s game tonight against the Winnipeg Jets, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced that forward Noel Acciari would not return to the game. During the second period, Winnipeg defenseman Brenden Dillon delivered a hit that made contact with Acciari’s head, resulting in a match penalty on the play. After receiving the hit from Dillon, Acciari attempted to get up, but quickly fell back down on the ice, indicating that he may be headed for concussion protocol.

Snapshots: NHL Expansion, Thomson, Newhook

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The NHL is eyeing expansion, with commissioner Gary Bettman naming Salt Lake City, Houston, Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Omaha all as cities that have expressed interest in housing an NHL club. Houston and Omaha are the only cities on the list not currently housing an ECHL club, though Omaha makes up for it with the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s Division 1 NCAA team and the USHL’s Omaha Lancers juniors club. Houston did host a minor league club from 1994 to 2013, though they relocated to Des Moines Iowa ahead of the 2013-14 season. The city has been without professional hockey ever since, though this season does mark the first time since World War II that the University of Houston has hosted a club hockey team.

How the NHL will go about reconfiguring divisions if one, or all, of these five cities receive a team is unclear. The list seemingly places three clubs undeniably in the Western Conference – Salt Lake City, Houston, and Omaha – while Atlanta would settle back into their place in the Eastern Conference. Cincinnati would be the toss-up, with the city situated perfectly on the line of conference ambiguity. It’s west of Detroit and Columbus – two teams that have spent time in both conferences – but still east of Nashville, a city that could reasonably mark where the Western Conference ends and the Eastern Conference begins. It seems most likely that Cincinnati will be the balancing piece in any new NHL expansions, if and when they happen.

Other notes from around the league:

  • The Ottawa Senators are open to shopping around defenseman Lassi Thomson, per team reporter Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun. A recent report on Sweden’s Expressen shared that the defenseman could return to Scandinavian hockey, joining the SHL’s Malmo Redhawks. This rumored move could be a driving factor in any trade talks, as Ottawa will surely want a return on their investment and any recipient will want to ensure they’re getting a long-term piece. Thomson, 23, has spent all season in the AHL, totaling 11 points through 40 games. He’s also added 40 penalty minutes and a -11. All of these stats are a step down from Thomson’s 2022-23 season, when he managed 33 points, 28 penalty minutes, and a -9 through 56 AHL games. The former 2019 first-round pick played two seasons in the Liiga, Finland’s top league, after being drafted and before his career in North American pros began at the end of the 2020-21 season.
  • Montreal Canadiens forward Alex Newhook is aiming for a return soon, says team general manager Kent Hughes. Newhook was announced as out for 10-to-12 weeks in early-December after suffering a high ankle sprain. That projection places his return in mid-February, at the earliest – though his return to the ice in late January suggests he’s progressing nicely. Newhook has appeared in 23 games with Montreal this season, scoring seven goals and 13 points. It’s his first time playing in Canada since his two-year stretch in the BCHL prior to being drafted. The Canadiens traded a 2023 first and second round draft pick, as well as Gianni Fairbrother, to the Colorado Avalanche this summer in exchange for Newhook.

Salt Lake City-Based Owners Request Initiation Of Formal NHL Expansion Process

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Salt Lake City-based Smith Entertainment Group filed a request for initiation of a formal expansion process by the NHL, according to a press release Wednesday. SEG owns the NBA’s Utah Jazz, MLS’ Real Salt Lake, and the NWSL’s Utah Royals.

This is the next step in the process that’s been ongoing since Ryan Smith, the head of SEG, expressed interest in receiving an NHL squad over a year ago. Salt Lake City has frequently been included in discussions as a potential relocation option if the Coyotes’ lack of a full-time arena in the Phoenix area goes unresolved.

In a statement, the NHL said they “have been impressed by [the Smiths’] commitment to their community” and called Utah “a promising market.” The league did not outline concrete next steps in a potential expansion bid but did confirm they would continue discussions with SEG.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has not yet discussed a Salt Lake City expansion with the league’s Board of Governors, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun says. Owner approval is the next large benchmark in the awarding of an expansion franchise.

If the Coyotes don’t have a formal arena plan filed with the league by the end of the month, expect relocation discussions to spread rapidly. Assumedly, Salt Lake City would still be in discussions as a relocation option, not expansion, given its proximity to the Coyotes’ current home and an NHL-ready arena in the Delta Center, home of the Jazz. The city also has concrete plans to construct a new, hockey-specific venue within the next ten years in anticipation of the 2034 Winter Olympics.

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