Arizona Coyotes plan to tank next season - no plans on icing competitive team

Having finished 2nd last in the NHL this past season with 57 points, only 1 win more than surprising last place finishers Montreal Canadiens, Coyotes general manager has indicated he'll be pursuing a rebuild this season.

Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong will be in the market for other teams' troublesome contracts again this summer, with the hope of acquiring more draft assets or prospects.

I reached out to media covering the other 31 NHL teams to see who might be on the list.https://t.co/KIcVZUbltc— Craig Morgan (@CraigSMorgan) May 13, 2022

What this means is that the Coyotes will take heavy contracts from underperforming players on contending teams in exchange for prospects and draft capital.

While this sort of plan has merit in terms of the long-game and looking to meaningfully improve a team, it is hard to imagen fans flocking to the Coyotes stadium next season knowing their game plan is to essentially field an uncompetitive team.


Considering the salary cap is supposed to be an equalizer in the NHL seeing these workarounds that enable larger market teams to dump deadweight contracts on smaller market teams is also a loophole the league should work to close.