It’s been almost six weeks since the Coyotes moved to Utah.
Well, the player roster and management moved, not the Coyotes name or brand.
It’s been a mix-up for everyone involved, from Utah NHL owner Ryan Smith to new chief executive Chris Armstrong and, of course, members of the front office, including the general manager who transferred with the team , Bill Armstrong.
“We were sitting there after dinner, after that big (arrival) event that all the fans came to, someone told us, ‘You know, it hasn’t even been a week since we played,’” Bill Armstrong said. Tuesday. “It was just a whirlwind. You were drinking from a fire hose.
“It’s kind of calm and we’re getting to the other side of all the great work and all that. Now you’re getting to hockey and you’re getting ready for the Draft, getting ready for free agency and moving everyone to Utah and getting our facilities up and running. We’re over the hump and now we’re getting down to hockey, and that’s the fun part.”
The front office is preparing for important organizational meetings over the next few weeks in the lead-up to the July 1 draft and free agency. Utah appears to be an active franchise this offseason.
“We’re here organizing our (fan) meetings,” Armstrong told The Athletic from Salt Lake City during a break in those meetings. “We’re getting into it, you know?”
The Utah hockey club has more than $40 million in cap space as of July 1, easily the most of any NHL club.
“Pretty good, huh?” laughed Armstrong, who was obviously forced to do things for financial reasons under the previous regime in Arizona.
The cap space comes largely from the dead money contracts of Jakub Voracek ($8.25 million) and Bryan Little ($5.3 million) coming off the books.
No more of that. It’s time to replenish the squad with active players. It’s time to complement the rebuild now heading into Year 4. Although just because they have all this cap space doesn’t mean they’ll spend like drunken sailors.
“Our big theme is to be relentless in improving our team without sacrificing the future,” Armstrong said. “And what that basically means in English is just making decisions that are smart, that will help our group grow. When we become good, those contracts cannot be burdens.
“Just because you have all that cap money doesn’t mean you have to make bad decisions and fill your cap and all of a sudden, five years from now, when you need the space, you won’t have it. “That’s why it’s really important to make good decisions, healthy decisions, that can help this group grow and improve the team without sacrificing the future.”
Reading between the lines, I think what you’ll see Utah focus on in free agency is trying to sign short-term deals with unrestricted free agents to help stock their roster further this summer and pay a little more salary for achieve it. So, one to two year agreements. Maybe a two-year offer from Utah is the same total money another team would offer over three years, etc.
The idea is not to tie up their payroll three or four years from now when younger, more central players need bigger deals.
It’s about plugging holes while the younger ones continue to develop.
“We’re still in growth mode,” Armstrong said.
That said, their entire blue line group is unsigned. There is a lot of work ahead.
Still, having a stable, deep-pocketed owner like Smith means Utah can now make decisions that focus on what’s best for the growth of this roster and not worry about what the cheapest possible solution is.
Imagine that, stability.
Toto, we’re not in Arizona anymore.
“It certainly gives you a chance to complement your younger players,” Armstrong said. “Where you can put people alongside you on one- or two-year deals that can really help them grow and help you be a more competitive team in the market.”
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And it’s not just July 1. The Utah club also hopes to use its cap space on the trade market this offseason. Perhaps teams with salary cap issues can be trade partners.
“We can help them and give them an option in return, like we have done in the past,” Armstrong said, with the Sean Durzi trade to the Los Angeles Kings being a prime example. “There will be a lot of things that will come our way just because we can accept cap dollars.”
As long as it doesn’t harm their future, Armstrong reiterated. That doesn’t mean they won’t consider signing one or two key UFAs to get deals done.
“There might be one or two guys that we think can help us long-term as well,” Armstrong said.
The balance for Armstrong is sticking to the long-term plan and not getting carried away with attractive shortcuts just because his organization is now financially stable.
“Sometimes you can try to squeeze it in and do too much and get caught up in some of these deals and then sure enough you get caught in a bad turn,” he said. “We want to make sure we still stick to the vision we had in the draft. Take a good player, stack him with another good player and keep going.”
The idea is to form a team with the ability to stay once it arrives.
“It’s just about being realistic with our goals, right?” Armstrong said. “Yes, we are a good team. We surely have seven 20-goal scorers. But we still have a lot of youth. If we can reduce free agency on defense and make some changes, we can improve our team.
“But that doesn’t mean we’re going to be a Stanley Cup contender next year.”
No, but they were on the playoff bubble for the first half of the 2023-24 season before collapsing in recent months. The distraction of the organization’s uncertain future in Arizona was absolutely part of that. It affected the players in a real way.
“Yes,” Armstrong said.
Now everyone is in a much better mood.
“I think it’s a really positive light,” Armstrong said. “I think the apprehension has disappeared. The players are very excited to come and play in an NHL rink packed with fans.
“There is great anticipation and excitement for our players to play here in Utah next year.”
(Bill Armstrong Photo: Chris Gardner//Keynote USA/Getty Images)
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