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Toronto Maple Leafs Acquire Conor Timmins

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The Toronto Maple Leafs have found their defenseman, acquiring Conor Timmins from the Arizona Coyotes according to Craig Morgan of PHNX Sports. The team will be sending minor league forward Curtis Douglas in return.

At one point, not too long ago, Timmins was one of the brightest young defensive prospects in the game. He was a big part of the trade that sent Darcy Kuemper to the Colorado Avalanche last summer, and was supposed to be a key player for Arizona’s rebuild.

But injuries have ruined his career so far, with Timmins playing just 105 games since the start of the 2018-19 season. Just two of those have come this year with Arizona, before he was sent down on a conditioning stint with the Tucson Roadrunners. As Morgan explains, the team wanted to send him down for a longer period in the AHL but he would have certainly been claimed on waivers.

Instead, he heads to Toronto where—you may have guessed—he is reunited with his other Soo Greyhounds alumni. Three of the Maple Leafs’ current roster defensemen were on the 2017-18 Greyhounds roster. Timmins, Mac Hollowell, and Rasmus Sandin were an incredible trio on that junior team, and will now be reunited in Toronto.

Whether Timmins can ever reach his previous potential remains to be seen, but it’s a worthwhile gamble for a Toronto team that is desperate for help on the back end. Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, and T.J. Brodie are all injured long-term, meaning Mark Giordano was left as the most reliable option.

In Douglas, the Coyotes are getting a massive forward that showed some scoring touch last season. The 22-year-old stands 6’9″ and scored 13 goals and 34 points for the Toronto Marlies in 2021-22. That offensive ability has completely dried up this year though, with Douglas registering just a single point in 13 games so far.

Arizona Coyotes Expected To Move Zack Kassian To IR

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The St. Louis Blues are streaking – again. They’ve nearly wiped out a franchise-record eight-game losing streak by rattling off six straight wins, the latter half of which have come without defenseman Colton Parayko in the lineup. Considered day-to-day with a lower-body injury, Parayko will be a game-time decision tonight when the Blues take on the Anaheim Ducks.

Berube even went so far as to say he was “confident” that Parayko would be back in the lineup, but still, it’s not assured. He’ll be an important piece for the Blues this season as he enters the first season of his eight-year, $52MM contract extension. His defensive play this year has been better than his -9 rating would suggest, with his sample size being weighed down by poor goaltending during the Blues’ losing streak. Tyler Tucker will draw out in place of Parayko after playing his first three NHL games, and Vladimir Tarasenko will miss a second straight game with an undisclosed illness.

  • In activating Jakob Chychrun and Nick Schmaltz from injured reserve, the Arizona Coyotes have replaced them with forward Zack Kassian to stay under the 23-player roster limit, according to PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan. Kassian has not played since November 1 and is still day-to-day with a lower-body injury, even though he’s missed nearly three weeks now. He’s eligible to return at any time given he’s well past the seven-day injured minimum required to be on IR, although the team will need to send someone down to accommodate.
  • Forward Elmer Soderblom remains day-to-day for the Detroit Red Wings despite not playing for weeks, per head coach Derek Lalonde today. Lalonde said Soderblom’s return from a lower-body injury is “probably going to take some time,” and there’s still no clear indication when the rookie could return. Defenseman Gustav Lindstrom could play this week, though. The Swede is also day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

Latest On Trade Market For Defensemen

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Mentioning the market for defense in the NHL immediately brings to mind at least two things: Jakob Chychrun and the Ottawa Senators, both as they are separately, and the rumors connecting the defenseman to Canada’s capitol. With Chychrun having been on IR to finish last season and now to start this season, the rumors surrounding the 24-year-old had been a bit quieter than usual, but expected to tick up with his return on Monday.

Tonight on Hockey Night in Canada’s 32 Thoughts segment, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman seemed to confirm this inevitability, expecting talks on Chychrun to begin heating up once the defenseman returns. Another interesting note from Friedman on the Coyotes and their defensemen is the possibility of a trade involving Conor Timmins. A second-round pick in 2017, Timmins’ prospect status has never really been in question, at least for his on-ice performance. Instead, injuries have derailed the 24-year-old’s career. Now on a conditioning stint in the AHL, Timmins appears to be fully healthy and soon to be ready for NHL action, causing Friedman to wonder if Arizona might pursue a trade market for Timmins as well.

A newer name added to the defensemen speculation is San Jose Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson. Once thought to be unmovable, Karlsson is off to an incredible start, on pace to set several career-bests already, scoring 11 goals along with 17 assists in just 19 games on the season. With four years left at an $11.5MM cap hit after this season, Karlsson will be incredibly difficult for the Sharks to move even with his historic production, but it just may make doing so possible for the rebuilding San Jose squad. According to Friedman, this also from 32 Thoughts, the Sharks haven’t gotten that far yet in any Karlsson talks. As Friedman says, the belief is that Karlsson has not yet been asked to move his no-movement clause, at least not for any specific team.

Friedman adds that he believes the Sharks are currently trying to determine what other teams are willing to do in regards to the rest of the contract. Of course the Sharks and their potential trade partner will have to work out how much, if any, San Jose retains on the remaining contract and what assets they could get back for Karlsson, which would hinge on how much the Sharks would retain.

One team looking for defense that many want to see on the shortlist to acquire Karlsson would be the Ottawa Senators. Their search for a defenseman in the early part of this season has been well documented and Chychrun has been the number one name associated with them. As reported by Friedman on 32 Thoughts earlier, it is believed Ottawa did try to work on a deal that would have sent Nikita Zaitsev to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Tyler Myers, but the deal did not get far enough for Myers, who has a modified no-trade clause, to be asked for permission. Other pieces would have presumably had to be involved to make the deal work for both sides, but that sort of swap would have benefitted Vancouver to the tune of $1.5MM in cap savings while giving Ottawa the defenseman they’ve been looking for and allowing them to get out from under the Zaitsev contract.

Jakob Chychrun Returns To Practice

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One of the ongoing debates in the hockey world is when the NHL will start to broaden coaching searches outside of North America. The league has only really had two European head coaches in its history, and every summer there is talk about how someone like Rickard Gronborg could be an interesting candidate.

Well, take at least one name off the list for the time being, as Toni Soderholm has signed a contract to coach SC Bern in the Swiss National League until 2024. The 44-year-old Finn had been the head coach of the German national team for the last several years but used an out clause to terminate the deal and join Bern. Like most of the candidates that are brought up in this discussion, Soderholm has ties to North American hockey already, having played and even captained UMass.

  • While the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrate their win over the Pittsburgh Penguins last night, the rest of the hockey world seems to be focused on finding them a new defenseman. Another piece came out today, this time from Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, detailing several candidates to replace Jake Muzzin. One name that is listed is Vladislav Gavrikov of the Columbus Blue Jackets, a name that has also been brought up by The Fourth Period in relation to the Maple Leafs. Toronto has some additional cap flexibility due to the injury to Jake Muzzin, which is keeping him out indefinitely and could end his career.
  • One of the names that is always brought up for defense-needy teams is Jakob Chychrun, and today he officially rejoined the Arizona Coyotes for practice. Speaking with Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic, Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong once again implied that he will not drop the asking price for Chychrun, which – according to LeBrun – is a package including two first-round picks.

What Your Team Is Thankful For: Arizona Coyotes

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As Thanksgiving and the holiday season approaches, PHR will be taking a look at what teams are thankful for in 2022-23. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the Arizona Coyotes.

Who are the Coyotes thankful for?

Clayton Keller.

There was a time in which Clayton Keller looked more like a quality top-six player than a truly elite talent. Like someone on the bubble of first-line talent level, but without the production to back up that assessment. Those days are over. Despite suffering a gruesome lower-body injury that prematurely ended his season last year, Clayton Keller has picked up right where he left off and is cementing himself as a true face-of-the-franchise offensive talent.

Last season was a breakout of sorts for Keller. While he scored 65 points in 2017-18 as a rookie, he struggled to reach those heights in subsequent years, finishing in the 40-point range for the next two seasons and then scoring at a 51-point pace in the shortened 2020-21 season. In 2021-22, Keller reached another dimension of production, scoring 63 points, leading the Coyotes in point production despite playing in just 67 games.

This year, Keller has 17 points in 15 games and looks every bit like the elite offensive play driver he was last year. Still just 24 years old, Keller has put himself in a position to be the centerpiece of the Coyotes’ forward corps for many years to come.

Back in 2019, Keller signed an eight-year, $7.15MM AAV extension. While it was a deal that some at the time viewed as an overpayment, it now looks to be an extremely shrewd investment, seeing as the going rate for point-per-game offensive play drivers is $8MM AAV or higher.

For a franchise that has dealt with so much uncertainty over the past few years, having Keller productive and locked into a team-friendly long-term extension is the sort of thing any Arizona fan should be extremely thankful for.

What are the Coyotes thankful for?

The 2023 Draft.

As was mentioned in the first edition of our Big Hype Prospects series, the 2023 draft class at the moment looks absolutely loaded with quality talent. That sentiment is especially true at the top of the draft, since there are four players whose current prospect profiles compare quite favorably to the first-overall picks from the 2021 and 2022 drafts.

Connor Bedard needs no introduction for most hockey fans, while University of Michigan forward Adam Fantilli is authoring the most productive freshman NCAA season since Jack Eichel tore Hockey East apart as a Boston University Terrier. Russian forward Matvei Michkov shattered junior scoring records in his home country and is currently scoring at an above-point-per-game rate in the VHL. And then there’s Swedish center Leo Carlsson who has burst onto the scene with 12 points in 17 games for Orebro in the SHL.

The Coyotes haven’t been among the NHL’s worst teams yet this season, but they are widely expected to find their way to the bottom of the NHL’s standings by the time the season runs its course.

If that ends up being the case, and the Coyotes end up finishing last in the NHL standings, they will not only have the highest odds of landing the draft’s top selection, (thereby securing themselves their choice from this top tier of prospects) they’ll also have guaranteed themselves a top-three selection, meaning they will, at worst, potentially have their choice of Michkov or Carlsson.

Since the Coyotes are a franchise that is looking to build for the long term and add as many talented prospects as possible, Coyotes fans should be extremely thankful that the crop of 2023 draft-eligible prospects looks to be so talented at this early stage.

What would the Coyotes be even more thankful for?

A clearer long-term home.

The Coyotes’ arena situation has gotten significant media attention in recent years, and that attention hasn’t always been positive. At the moment, the Coyotes are currently sharing Mullett Arena with the Arizona State University Sun Devils hockey program.

While some might point out that Mullett Arena is a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility that provides a more intimate experience than any other NHL arena, it’s important to remember that the experience is only “intimate” because the arena’s capacity hovers around the 5,000 mark.

Mullett Arena is definitely a unique venue that provides some interesting opportunities for the team to pursue, but it’s unfit to be the Coyotes’ long-term home. The team is seeking a long-term arena solution in Tempe, although the likelihood of the team’s proposal becoming reality is unclear. The issue could potentially be decided via a referendum, which is hardly the sort of slam-dunk green light the franchise is definitely hoping for.

While the future on the ice is looking bright for the Coyotes, Arizona fans would have a lot more to be thankful for if the team’s off-ice future was more settled and concrete.

What should be on the Coyotes’ holiday wish list?

A busy trade market.

One of the single largest advantages Arizona has over other teams is their considerable war chest of cap space. While most NHL teams are counting their pennies in order to remain cap compliant, the Coyotes, per CapFriendly’s calculations, are on pace to have over $74MM in cap space accumulated by the trade deadline.

As a result, the Coyotes will have the bandwidth under the salary cap to act as a “broker” for any potential trades between cap-strapped teams. What this means is that the Coyotes will be able to act as a financial facilitator for other teams’ trades, in exchange for draft pick compensation. They have the ability to retain salary on two players in advance of this year’s trade deadline and may be able to charge higher prices for that retention than in prior years thanks to the leaguewide lack of cap space.

The Coyotes already have a stockpile of draft picks amassed for the 2024 draft, but their 2023 is looking comparatively thin. With the ability to add draft picks from other teams in exchange for their cap space, the Coyotes should definitely be hoping that the trade market has a lot of activity so that the demand for their cap space is as high as possible.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

Jakob Chychrun, Nick Schmaltz Set To Return Next Week

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The Arizona Coyotes are about to get some reinforcements after an already impressive stretch of play, at least compared to expectations. Defenseman Jakob Chychrun and forward Nick Schmaltz are set to return to the lineup next Monday when the Coyotes take on the Nashville Predators, according to general manager Bill Armstrong, who spoke with PHNX Sports’ Craig Morgan.

As previously reported, though, it seems like Chychrun won’t play more than a handful of games as a Coyote this year. Trade speculation around him has been constant for around a year, and as of the last notable update almost a month ago, the Coyotes’ asking price for the young defender remains on the high side. He’s missed the first month of the season with an ankle injury that kept him out of the end of last season, as well as a separate wrist injury sustained late last month. The 24-year-old is coming off a down season but had 41 points in just 56 games during the 2020-21 campaign. The 16th overall pick in 2016 is a legitimate top-four defenseman regardless, and players like him don’t come around on the trade market often.

Schmaltz, who had a resurgent campaign last year with 59 points in 63 games, left the team’s season opener in the first period. He’s been out since with an upper-body injury.

In an anticipatory transaction, the Coyotes today also sent down forward Laurent Dauphin to the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners. The minor-league veteran played just one game with the Coyotes this year, but has eight points in eight games with Tucson.

Conor Timmins Sent To AHL On Conditioning Stint

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After last playing on October 15, stepping right into an NHL game would have been a challenge for Arizona Coyotes defenseman Conor Timmins. Instead, he’ll get a chance to tune up his game in the minor leagues. The Coyotes have loaned Timmins to the Tucson Roadrunners on a conditioning stint, allowing him to get into some game action at the lower level before making his return.

Timmins, 24, has unfortunately dealt with injuries nearly since the moment he was selected 32nd overall by the Colorado Avalanche in 2017. After playing just 36 regular season games in his post-draft season because of an injured ankle, he missed the entire 2018-19 campaign due to concussion issues. Arriving in Arizona as part of the Darcy Kuemper trade, he blew out his knee six games into 2021-22 and was absent the rest of the season.

Now he has already missed nine games for the Coyotes this year and managed only six shifts in one of the two games he did suit up in. For a player that once had sky-high potential and expectations, it’s difficult to know what will become of Timmins. Still looking for his first NHL goal and having only played in 99 total games since the end of the 2017-18 season, it has been a hard road.

Hopefully, after this latest injury is resolved, he can become a regular in the Arizona lineup and put together a relatively healthy campaign. The conditioning loan to the minor leagues will be limited and he should be up after just a few outings.

Coyotes Recall Laurent Dauphin

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7:00 pm: The Coyotes appear to have made a corresponding move, placing forward Nick Schmaltz on IR, according to CapFriendly. The Coyotes’ star center has only played one game this season and has been out since mid-October with an upper-body injury. Then, nearly three weeks ago, Schmaltz was considered out six-to-eight weeks. It’s unclear if that timetable has been changed at all.

3:57 pmA strong start in the minors has led to another NHL opportunity for Laurent Dauphin as the Coyotes announced (Twitter link) that they have recalled the center from Tucson of the AHL.

The 27-year-old was originally drafted by the Coyotes but a good chunk of his NHL action came elsewhere as he played in 38 games with Montreal last season, recording a dozen points.  Overall, between the two organizations, he has 16 points in 73 NHL contests.  Dauphin is averaging a point per game in the minors in the early going this season with five goals and three assists in eight contests while being named Player of the Week last month.

Dauphin’s recall was an expected one as Arizona has been carrying just 11 forwards on their active roster following the injury to Zack Kassian who has been ruled out for the five-game Eastern portion of their 14-game road trip due to a lower-body injury so it was only a matter of time before a replacement forward was brought up.  He won’t be in the lineup tonight in Washington (the team is expected to dress seven defenders) but should be available to suit up on Tuesday in Buffalo to officially begin his second stint with the team.

Dylan Guenther To Remain With Coyotes, Will Burn First Season Of Contract

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This is the time of year when some teams will need to make decisions about any junior-aged players they might have.  Once a player plays in ten NHL games, they officially begin (or burn) the first year of their entry-level contract.  One of the players in that situation was Coyotes winger Dylan Guenther.  The decision has been made and the 19-year-old will remain with the big club with the news being broken to him by his family (Twitter link).

Guenther was the ninth overall selection in 2021 with a pick that was acquired from Vancouver as part of the swap that sent defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson and winger Conor Garland to the Canucks.  He lit it up with Edmonton of the WHL last season, scoring 45 goals while adding 46 assists in just 59 games while adding another 21 points (13-8-21) in just 16 playoff contests.  Accordingly, there wasn’t much left for him to do at the major junior level but he’s ineligible to play with AHL Tucson this season (aside from a short-term conditioning stint) which left his options as Arizona or the WHL.

The Coyotes kept Guenther up after a good showing in training camp and he has rewarded them with a strong start to his rookie campaign with two goals and four helpers through his first nine contests.  Perhaps as important as the production is the fact that he’s logging nearly 13 minutes a night which is a decent amount of ice time for a junior-aged player.  That type of playing time should be sustainable throughout the year, especially with Arizona struggling a bit offensively as they sit 30th in the NHL in goals scored heading into today’s action.

With this news, Guenther will become a restricted free agent in the 2025 offseason but there is still one more threshold to watch for which is 40 games on the active roster.  Once he gets to that mark, he then accrues a season of service time toward unrestricted free agency which would allow him to hit the open market at 26 instead of 27.  He won’t get to that mark for a few months so there will be plenty of time for his evaluation to continue.

Latest On Coyotes Arena

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The Dallas Stars are off to a flying start to begin their 2022-23 season. The team is 5-3-1 and first in the Central Division. Among multiple major factors contributing to their strong play has been the emergence of Wyatt Johnston. The Stars’ 2021 first-round pick tore the OHL apart last season and has started his NHL career with four points in nine games, which ranks him just outside the Stars’ top-five forwards in scoring.

Today, we have an update on Johnston. Since Johnston was an OHL player, the Stars had a nine-game window to decide if they would return Johnston to his OHL team and let his entry-level contract “slide” for another season before he would (presumably) make his full NHL debut next season. Per Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek, the Stars won’t be going that route with Johnston. Instead, Johnston is going to stay with the Stars and potentially be a full member of the team for the duration of the 2022-23 season.

Some other notes from across the NHL:

  • Craig Morgan of PHNX Sports reported today that the Arizona Coyotes’ arena and entertainment district plan, the one they proposed to the Tempe, Arizona City Council, will likely be referred to a referendum, meaning the decision on whether to accept the plan will be deferred to and voted on directly by voters. Morgan also notes that “there is also the potential for litigation from any number of parties, including Sky Harbor International Airport, the City of Phoenix, the Goldwater Institute, or local citizens groups.” The Coyotes just began their stay at their current home, Arizona State University’s Mullett Arena, and will have to hope that their plans for a new arena are accepted via a referendum in order to make concrete progress to a more suitable long-term home.
  • The Minnesota Wild have announced that forward Marcus Foligno will not play in tonight’s game due to an upper-body injury. Foligno has three points in eight games this season. His health will be something for Wild fans to monitor as the team, who currently boast a 3-4-1 record, looks to find stronger footing early in this campaign.

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