NEW YORK — André Tourigny was answering a routine pregame question about lineup changes Monday morning at Madison Square Garden when he made a point he admittedly knows he couldn’t have made honestly at the during his first two seasons as coach of the Arizona Coyotes.
“We have 22 guys here that can play every night, have had a really good camp and we’re really comfortable being in the lineup at any time,” said the third-year Coyotes coach .
It seems so simple and necessary, but when you’re a rebuilding team in the NHL, you don’t always have 22 players you feel comfortable playing with in any given game.
The Coyotes have been in a complete, top-down rebuild since hiring general manager Bill Armstrong on September 17, 2020. Thirty-seven months later, they have some depth and reasonable potential to stay in the Cup playoff race Stanley throughout the season. .
And with that came the respect of the entire NHL.
“There’s definitely been a rebuilding process within this organization and what’s happened doesn’t happen overnight,” New York Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “I think you start to see the pieces come into play and with that, like any team, you see that there are some good young players that are really making an impact in the League, and they have some really good young players now. It’s a team. “It’s on the rise. They begin. Different teams may be at different levels, but this is a team that is on the rise. “
The Coyotes gave the Rangers all they could handle in a 2-1 loss Monday. They were somewhat exhausted playing the next night and held to 14 shots, but they still gave the New York Islanders a beating in a 1-0 loss at UBS Arena.
All of this came after opening the season Friday with a 4-3 shootout victory over the New Jersey Devils, a 52-win, 112-point team last season.
The Coyotes are 2-2-0 after a 6-2 win over the St. Louis Blues in the finale of their season-opening four-game road trip on Thursday. They will play their home opener at Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University against the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday.
“I think we’re going to shock a lot of people with how good a hockey team we are,” the rookie forward said. Logan Cooley said. “We’re definitely going to push for a playoff spot.”
Cooley is a rising star. He’s already a must-see attraction because of his talent for getting you out of your seat. Cooley, the third pick in the 2022 NHL draft, picked up his fourth assist on Thursday.
“He’s a very exciting player for us,” Armstrong said. “He has a dynamic personality and he wants to get better. It’s exciting for the organization.”
Clayton Keller is already a star. The forward is coming off his sixth full season in the NHL and his best, as he collected 86 points (37 goals, 49 assists) in 82 games. He had a goal and an assist on Thursday, giving him five points (two goals, three assists) in four games.
But it goes beyond Cooley and Keller, although they are the players to talk about when talking about the Coyotes.
Forwards Mattias Maccelli and Barrett Hayton as well as defender JJ Moser are all 23 years old and should take the next step towards becoming consistent impact players this season.
Forwards Lawson Crouse and Nick Schmaltz, like Keller, grew up with the Coyotes and went through all the difficulties. They represent a lot of the good that is starting to happen in Arizona.
“They have very fast forwards,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “They play a very fast game, kind of like Seattle. They’re in motion all the time, taking off. Keller and Schmaltz are very good players. They’ve become very good players in this league, making plays and scoring. and things like that.”
The Coyotes also believe they have a top goalie tandem in Karel Vejmelka and Connor Ingram.
“In the past we weren’t known in the league, but our goalies have been really good over the last two years,” Tourigny said. “Sometimes the numbers weren’t in their favor because of our situation as a team, but we saw them perform little miracles for us during the season the last two years, so we know what they can do.”
Arizona bolstered its depth over the summer by acquiring defenseman Sean Durzi in a trade with the Los Angeles Kings and signing five veteran unrestricted free agents, including two, forward Nick Bjugstad and defenseman Troy Stecher, who returned after the Coyotes traded them last season.
Forward Alex Kerfoot and Bjugstad each signed two-year contracts. Forward Jason Zucker, defenseman Matt Dumba and Stecher each signed for one season.
Hence this depth that Tourigny speaks of with joy.
“We expect our opponent to take us seriously,” Tourigny said. “We talk about it a lot, teams know we’re a better team. We’re known for our work ethic and hard work, but now we expect our opponent to know we have talent. We have young talent and veterans. We have depth now and we will use the depth.
Better yet, the Coyotes also have expectations now.
They’re not fooling themselves into thinking it’s Stanley Cup or bust this season. Even Armstrong has regularly said the Coyotes aren’t a playoff team yet.
But the Devils weren’t expected to be a playoff team last season either, and they went on to set team records for wins and points.
Armstrong took note.
“They had taken a bigger step than us, but no one knew them last year and that was scary, and it’s the same for us,” Armstrong said. “I think people don’t know how good we can be and we don’t know how good we can be. There’s a scare factor there where people are like, ‘OK, how good These guys are good and will they continue?’ be good or is it just a flash at the beginning of the year? We don’t know that answer either.”
The Coyotes might just have enough good players to find the right answer.
NHL.com freelance correspondent Lou Korac contributed to this report
