Phoenix Coyotes

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Phoenix Coyotes
Phoenix Coyotes
Conference Western
Division Pacific
Founded 1972
History Winnipeg Jets
1972-1996
Phoenix Coyotes
1996-present
Arena Jobing.com Arena
City Glendale, Arizona
Local Media Affiliates FSN Arizona
KAZT (Channel 27) KDUS (1060 AM)
Team Colors Brick Red, Sand, Black, and White
Owner Flag of Canada Wayne Gretzky
Jerry Moyes
General Manager Flag of Canada Michael Barnett
Head Coach Flag of Canada Wayne Gretzky
Captain Flag of Canada Shane Doan
Minor League Affiliates San Antonio Rampage (AHL)
Phoenix RoadRunners (ECHL)
Laredo Bucks (CHL)
Stanley Cups None
Conference Championships None
Division Championships None

The Phoenix Coyotes are a professional ice hockey team based in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale. They play in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Franchise History

Phoenix's first logo (1996-2003).
Phoenix's first logo (1996-2003).

[edit] Winnipeg Years — WHA and NHL

The team began play as the Winnipeg Jets, one of the founding franchises in the World Hockey Association (WHA). The Jets were the most successful team in the short-lived WHA, winning three Avco World Trophies, the league's championship trophy, and making the finals five out of the WHA's seven seasons. It then became one of the four teams admitted to the NHL when the rival leagues merged in 1979.

However, the club was never able to translate that success into the NHL after the merger, in part because they played in the same division as the powerful Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames. While they made the playoffs 11 times in 15 seasons, they only won two playoff series. Due to the way the playoffs were structured for much of their Winnipeg run, the Jets were all but assured of having to defeat either the Oilers or the Flames to make it to the conference finals.

Despite strong fan support, the money simply was not around for the team, especially after player salaries began spiraling up in the early 1990s. The team was sold to Phoenix businessmen Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke, and in 1996, the club moved to Arizona and became the Phoenix Coyotes.

[edit] The early Phoenix years (1996-2005)

In the summer that the move took place, the franchise saw the exit of Jets stars like Teemu Selänne and Alexei Zhamnov, while the team added established superstar Jeremy Roenick who teamed up with power wings Keith Tkachuk and Rick Tocchet to form a dynamic 1-2-3 offensive punch that led the Coyotes through their first years in Arizona. Also impressive were young players like Shane Doan (the last remaining original Jet), Oleg Tverdovsky and goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, arguably the most popular player in Coyotes history, whom the fans nicknamed the "Bulin Wall".

Another key addition to the squad was fleet sniper Mike Gartner, who had come over from the Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite his speed, and scoring his 700th career goal on December 15, 1997, Gartner battled injuries as 1997 became 1998, and the Coyotes did not renew his contract. He retired at the end of the season.

After arriving in Phoenix, the team posted six consecutive .500 or better seasons, making the playoffs in every year but one. They were tremendously popular, in part due to the large number of Northern expatriates in the Phoenix area. The one year they missed the playoffs, the Coyotes became the first team in NHL history to post 90 points — long the standard of excellence in the NHL — and yet still miss the playoffs.

Phoenix-area developer Steve Ellman bought the team from Burke (who had bought out Gluckstern in 1998) in 2001, with Wayne Gretzky as a part-owner and head of hockey operations.

To this day, the Coyotes have never made it out of the first round of the playoffs. The franchise has not won a playoff series since 1987, when it was still in Winnipeg. The closest that they came to advancing past the first round was during the 1999 playoffs, when they lost a heartbreaking Game 7 to the St. Louis Blues. In 2002, the Coyotes posted 95 points, one point behind their best total as an NHL team, but made a rather meek first-round exit from the playoffs, being eliminated in five games by the San Jose Sharks.

However, several poor personnel decisions sent the Coyotes to the lower echelon of the NHL for two years. Attendance levels dropped considerably, worrying many league executives. In addition, an unfavorable lease with America West Arena, where the team played for its first eight years in Phoenix, had the team bleeding red ink.

In addition to the Coyotes' unfavorable lease with America West Arena, the building itself was inadequate as a venue for hockey. Several seats were obstructed because the arena's floor was not designed with a hockey rink in mind, unlike most modern arenas. Seating capacity had to be cut down to 16,000 — the second-smallest in the league at the time — after the first season. Even then, a stretch of the upper deck actually hung over the boards, obstructing the views of around 3,000 spectators. Some fans even claimed that they saw places where the original concrete had been sheared off to create retractable seats for hockey. After attempts failed either to renovate America West or build an arena in Scottsdale, the Coyotes built Glendale Arena (now known as Jobing.com Arena), and moved there in 2003. Simultaneously, the team changed its logo and uniforms; it was a departure from the previous multi-colored kit and was an apparent nod to hockey purists.

[edit] Recent Years: The Gretzky Era

The Coyotes' alternate logo
The Coyotes' alternate logo

In August 2005, two months before the start of the new hockey season, the Coyotes announced that Gretzky would become head coach as well, replacing interim coach Rick Bowness. That month, the team signed aging superstar Brett Hull, son of former Jets great Bobby Hull, and unretired the elder Hull's number for the younger to wear. "The Golden Brett" only lasted a few games before finding that the increased speed of the NHL under the new rule set was too late for him. In another, rather unusual, move, the Coyotes re-honored another Jets great, Thomas Steen, in 2006, despite the fact that his number had been retired by the Jets some years earlier.

The Jets/Coyotes franchise is currently the oldest NHL team to have never appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals. Furthermore, it is the only NHL franchise from the old WHA that has not won a Stanley Cup championship; the Coyotes earned this distinction when the Carolina Hurricanes (formerly known as the Hartford Whalers) won the Stanley Cup in 2006.

The Coyotes, led by captain Shane Doan, "The Last Jet", hoped for a happy return to Winnipeg on September 17, 2006, playing a pre-season game against the 2006 Stanley Cup runner-up Oilers. Doan's anticipated "happy return to Winnipeg" didn't come even close, as the Coyotes were shut out 5-0, despite outshooting the Oilers of 27-26. Oilers' rookie goaltender Devan Dubnyk in front of a sellout pro-Oilers crowd of 15,015 at the MTS Centre, the primary tenant of which is the Manitoba Moose, the American Hockey League affiliate of the Vancouver Canucks.

[edit] Season-by-season record

Note: GP = Games played, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OTL = Overtime Losses, Pts = Points, GF = Goals for, GA = Goals against, PIM = Penalties in minutes

Records as of February 6, 2007. [1]

Season GP W L T OTL Pts GF GA PIM Finish Playoffs
1996-97 82 38 37 7 83 240 243 1582 3rd, Central Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 3-4 (Mighty Ducks)
1997-98 82 35 35 12 82 224 227 1602 4th, Central Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 2-4 (Red Wings)
1998-99 82 39 31 12 90 205 197 1412 2nd, Pacific Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 3-4 (Blues)
1999-00 82 39 31 8 4 90 232 228 940 3rd, Pacific Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 1-4 (Avalanche)
2000-01 82 35 27 17 3 90 214 212 1337 4th, Pacific Did not qualify
2001-02 82 40 27 9 6 95 228 210 1154 2nd, Pacific Lost in Conference Quarterfinals, 1-4 (Sharks)
2002-03 82 31 35 11 5 78 204 230 1433 4th, Pacific Did not qualify
2003-04 82 22 36 18 6 68 188 245 1300 5th, Pacific Did not qualify
2004-051
2005-062 82 38 39 5 81 246 271 1493 5th, Pacific Did not qualify
2006-073 82 31 46 5 62 216 284 1038 5th, Pacific Did not qualify


Totals 813 346 340 94 33 819 2182 2322 13291
1 Season was cancelled due to the 2004-05 NHL lockout.
2 As of the 2005-06 NHL season, all games will have a winner; the OTL column includes SOL (Shootout losses).
3 As of March 24th, 2007.

[edit] Notable players

[edit] Current roster

As of March 3, 2007. [1]

Goaltenders
# Player Catches Acquired Place of Birth
31 Flag of Canada Curtis Joseph L 2005 Keswick, Ontario
32 Flag of Sweden Mikael Tellqvist L 2006 Sundbyberg, Sweden
Defensemen
# Player Shoots Acquired Place of Birth
2 Flag of United States Keith Ballard L 2004 Baudette, Minnesota
4 Flag of Czech Republic Zbynek Michalek R 2005 Jindrichuv Hradec, Czechoslovakia
5 Flag of United States Matt Jones L 2002 Downers Grove, Illinois
36 Flag of Canada Brendan Bell L 2007 Ottawa, Ontario
44 Flag of Canada Nick Boynton R 2006 Nobleton, Ontario
53 Flag of Canada Derek Morris - A R 2004 Edmonton, Alberta
55 Flag of Canada Ed Jovanovski - A (IR) L 2006 Windsor, Ontario
77 Flag of Canada Travis Roche R 2006 Grande Cache, Alberta
Forwards
# Player Position Shoots Acquired Place of Birth
8 Flag of Finland Niko Kapanen C L 2007 Hameenlinna, Finland
11 Flag of Canada Owen Nolan - A RW R 2006 Belfast, United Kingdom
12 Flag of Switzerland Patrick Fischer (IR) C L 2006 Zug, Switzerland
13 Flag of Canada Daniel Carcillo LW L 2007 King City, Ontario
14 Flag of United States Kevyn Adams C R 2007 Washington, District of Columbia
15 Flag of Canada Mike Zigomanis C R 2006 North York, Ontario
19 Flag of Canada Shane Doan - C RW R 1995 Halkirk, Alberta
20 Flag of Sweden Fredrik Sjostrom RW L 2001 Färgelanda, Sweden
21 Flag of United States Bill Thomas RW R 2006 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
22 Flag of Sweden Mathias Tjarnqvist LW L 2007 Umea, Sweden
23 Flag of United States Jeff Taffe C L 2006 Hastings, Minnesota
24 Flag of Canada Josh Gratton LW L 2006 Scarborough, Ontario
28 Flag of Canada Steven Reinprecht - A C L 2006 Edmonton, Alberta
29 Flag of Canada Yanick Lehoux RW R 2006 Montreal, Quebec
38 Flag of Canada Dave Scatchard (IR) C R 2005 Hinton, Alberta
40 Flag of Canada Mike Ricci (IR) C L 2004 Scarborough, Ontario
97 Flag of United States Jeremy Roenick C R 2006 Boston, Massachusetts

[edit] Team captains

Note: This list does not include captains from the Winnipeg Jets (NHL & WHA).

[edit] Hall of Famers

Note: Hawerchuk and Hull played for Winnipeg.

[edit] Retired numbers

  • 9 Bobby Hull, LW, 1972-80, number retired by Winnipeg February 19, 1989; Hull's #9 was unretired briefly upon his request at the beginning of the 2005-06 season for his son, Brett, before he retired five games into the season.
  • 25 Thomas Steen, RW, 1981-95, number retired by Winnipeg May 6, 1995
  • 99 Wayne Gretzky, number retired league-wide February 6, 2000

The Coyotes continue to honor the retired numbers of the Winnipeg Jets franchise; the banners for Hull and Steen at Jobing.com Arena are in the Jets' blue, white and red.

[edit] First-round draft picks

Note: This list does not include selections of the Winnipeg Jets.

[edit] Franchise scoring leaders

These are the top-ten point-scorers in franchise (Winnipeg & Phoenix) history. Figures are updated after each completed NHL regular season.

Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games Played; G = Goals; A = Assists; Pts = Points; P/G = Points per game; * = current Coyotes player

Player Pos GP G A Pts P/G
Dale Hawerchuk C 713 379 550 929 1.30
Thomas Steen RW 950 264 553 817 .86
Keith Tkachuk LW 640 323 300 623 .97
Teppo Numminen D 1098 108 426 534 .49
Paul MacLean RW 527 248 270 518 .98
Shane Doan* RW 730 172 245 417 .57
Doug Smail LW 691 189 208 397 .58
Laurie Boschman LW 526 152 227 379 .72
Jeremy Roenick* C 384 141 210 351 .91
Morris Lukowich LW 431 168 177 345 .80

[edit] NHL awards and trophies

Jack Adams Award

[edit] Franchise records

Individual
Team

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hockeydb.com, Phoenix Coyotes season statistics and records.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links