Final nail in Coyotes coffin - will they finally be forced to move?

The Arizona Coyotes have been the laughing stock of the NHL franchises for awhile. The Coyotes are usually the butt of the joke and more often than not they're ownership is the reason for it. It is starting to sound like the NHL will have no choice but to move the franchise out of Arizona.

The Coyotes last attempt at staying in Arizona was a 1.7 billion dollar facility to be built in Tempe, but it sounds more and more like that deal is going to fail.

GoPHNX shared the following information:

"Two sources with knowledge of the situation said that the Coyotes do not currently have the votes in the Tempe City Council to approve the project and move forward, although it should be noted that the proposal did not die in a recent executive session in December.

Per those sources, there are three yes votes, two no votes and two votes that are undecided, but leaning toward no after the Coyotes' recent failure to pay taxes and bills came to light.

«The Coyotes certainly aren't doing themselves any favors with the negative news stories,» one source said. «I would imagine if another negative story comes up on (owner Alex) Meruelo or the organization or their business practices, it probably will die. Those stories hurt tremendously.»"

The Coyotes continue to do themselves no favours as it took them 10 additional days to pay their overdue tax bill. The Coyotes had posted online that they'd paid their tax bill in full on December 10th, but they didn't make the payment for 10 additional days on December 20th.

This didn't sit well with the Tempe City council who obviously have concerns about how the Coyotes will complete future payments for the facility.

The next Tempe City Council meeting is set for Thursday at 5 p.m. which will hopefully provide some clarity so the NHL can finally admit the mistake they made by placing a team in Arizona.