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Overdue overhaul Another early exit for Coyotes should prompt change
Posted: Tuesday April 25, 2000 01:21 AM
Lots of teams have gone out in the first round of the playoffs before; Some for several years at a time.
Most do a self-examination, declare that they are indeed on the right track and then take the summer to plan how to do better next season even though the team and the management and coaching staff remains largely untouched.
That's not likely to be the case in Phoenix.
For one thing, the team is in the process of a very public sale that might have been a factor in the relatively effortless loss to the Colorado Avalanche in five games.
For another, this team is just the latest edition of the Winnipeg/Phoenix franchise that has gone out in the first round nine ties in a row.
That should signify major changes.
Losing in five games won't sit well with new ownership any more than it should with old ownership. The longest current first-and-out streak in the NHL should cause them to redouble their efforts to change the talent and chemistry of the team, perhaps even the front office.
Highly suspect for next season are the core players from this one. Keith Tkachuk is most likely to be pushed out. He's scheduled to make a team-record $8.3 million next season and it's not likely the franchise wants to pay that to a player who hasn't been able to lift the team's fortunes in any of his four seasons there.
Jeremy Roenick's career as a Coyote also is in jeopardy. He goes to $5 million but it hasn't been looked upon as money well spent either.
Any hockey man will tell you can lose for considerably less than the $13.5 million tied up in those two players. That goes double when new owners are shelling out some $87 million to buy the team and putting up the cash to build a new arena as well.
The Coyotes already are said to be bleeding money from their awkward lease with America West Arena, a lease that favors the NBA team and limits off-ice income streams for the Coyotes.
The likely scenario in Phoenix is that the club keeps Roenick as a gate attraction, but dumps Tkachuk on any club that will relive the franchise of the salary.
However, Roenick could also be in trouble if management goes hard to try and re-sign goalie Nikolai Khabibulin, the top-rated netminder who sat out the season in a bitter contract dispute. Goaltending was among the many reasons the Coyotes went out again in the first round as veteran Sean Burke was nothing more than a stop-gap (and an overmatched one at that) charged with filling the void left by the absence of Khabibulin.
After that the Coyotes have a total of 14 free agents (most of them restricted) to sign in the offseason. Dallas Drake likely will be a difficult player to re-sign. Drake is coveted as a superior role player by many teams. He is a tremendous hitter, a talent that is making a big comeback in the NHL as the league seems to have relaxed some rules in that regard, especially when it comes to running goaltenders.
Even the roles of general manager Bobby Smith and new coach Bob Francis will likely be given a full review. Though the team is thought to be talented, it hasn't moved off the first-round schneid during Smith's tenure. He already made one coaching change last spring, firing Jim Schoenfeld after the team blew a 3-1 lead in the playoffs and lost to St. Louis.
This team didn't even do that well and Smith will have to answer to the new owners for that.
It's going to be a hot summer in the Valley of the Sun, even in the air-conditioned suites where the Coyotes do business. Jim Kelley covers the NHL -- and the Sabres -- for the Buffalo News. His notebook and Rumor Mill appear weekly on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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