EHM The Blue Line

Decided to create a career blog of my Arizona Coyotes game.

Important details of the career -
- This is GM ONLY. All the tactics and lines are decided by my head coach and coaching staff, I do not interfere with this. I think the game feels more realistic this way as my team has a chance to fall apart just like an AI team does and no Stanley Cup victory is guaranteed.
- Uses TBL Rosters v13.1, NHL is the only enhanced league and many leagues where majority of NHL prospects or ex NHL'ers play are view-only, like Memorial Cup leagues in Canada, All of Frozen Four leagues in USA, AHL and ECHL, Swedish Finnish Check Slovak Russian and few other extraliga's as well as secondary leagues of some of those countries like Allsvenskan or MHL.
- The game has just started Year 3 at the time of writing this post.
- "Disable human manager sackings" has NOT been disabled so this career story can come to an abrupt end at some point. It hasn't yet.

Let's get started.
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Arizona Coyotes, a mess left by John Chayka has been taken over at the GM spot by a nobody named A.Dragon on 5th of August 2020 with the plan to bring Coyotes back to relevance and cup contention as soon as year 1, no time for rebuilds.

Year 1 Coyotes start of season -

Notable transactions start of season -
Complete reset of Staff. Gerard Gallant brought in as Head Coach, new coaching lineup of 5 assistant coaches (Technique based forward coach, defensive coach Matt Shaw, goalie coach Mike Dunham, tactics coach and conditioning based coach), 14 strong scouts and 3 physios as well as a new quality assistant GM.
Defensive Defenseman Cernak signed as a UFA (might be a bug in the roster update since he is only 23.), bottom pairing defenseman Curran traded from Ducks for C.Fischer and ahl-potential prospects, disgruntled Franchise Center Dubois traded for Barret Hayton and few prospects, Puljujarvi traded from Oilers I can't remember whom for actually but none of what Oilers got panned out in the 2 years, Gauthier signed as a young UFA for bottom 6 or bottom 3, top 6 forward Victor Oloffson brought in, I completely forgot who I traded for him, mainly prospects I guess?

Year 1 Coyotes transactions during season -
Kessel, Brayden Burke and 2022 1st round pick traded for Jesper Bratt, Jared Spurgeon acquired via Trade Deadline for prospects, think Adin Hill was the most notable prospect given up.

Here's how Year 1 went -



That all-Canadian final is a rare sight indeed. Also the 2nd round sweep hurt. Vancouver had a good team.

Moving on to Year 2 on the next post.

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Year 2 - Coyotes start of season.

Transaction up to this point -
- Goligoski was not resigned. Too old and declining.
- Raanta and Westerlund traded to Wild for their late 1st round draft choice 2021 draft(they had 2 first-rounders.), a center goalscorer with 5-start potential - Logan Stankoven. This was to make room for newcoming Ilya Sorokin. Raanta had been given an extention beforehand by us.
- Sorokin signed as a UFA as Lou Lamoriello somehow widdled away this asset as he for some reason spent the whole year 1 in the minors. 2 years 4 million per.
- Taylor Hall signed as a UFA just before training camp for 1 year, 6.7 million cap hit. Erik Haula signed for 3 years just under 2 million per, perfect 3rd line center. Lowry, Noesen and Koekkoek brought in as depth pieces/reserves.

No notable transactions for Coyotes after that. This is how Year 2 went -



Jared Spurgeon came 2nd in Norris voting, behind Hedman of Tampa Bay.

And then the playoffs -

Lost to Ducks in 5 games as Coyotes could not score against John Gibson for 6 periods straight in last 2 games.
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Currently the game is at the start of Year 3 in august 2022. 1 teaser to tell - a HUGE TRADE done by Coyotes at the end of July. More on that on next post.

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YEAR 3

As told, start of Year 3 (2022-2023) saw Coyotes start with a massive trade. Here it is -

- It was noticeable that Coyotes need scoring boost on the right wing especially since Taylor Hall was unresignable, so Laine was the target who we plan to have as part of Coyotes young forward core for years to come.
- It might be the worst trade I've done so far. Chychrun departure left a huge hole on the LD, his attributes had already outgrown those of Ekman-Larsson's and was on a steal of a 4 million per year contract.
Trading Kuemper away made sense, Sorokin was to be our starter and Larsinantti was an impressive starting goalie in the AHL for past 2 seasons, so was to be given the chance as an NHL backup. Puljujarvi and Curran helped adding the value to the trade so that the Jets GM would accept such a deal. The 2 below assets did not really pan out for them later on, Jesse was traded later and Curran was stuck in the AHL.
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Coyotes roster Start of Year 3

Giordano and De Haan were brought in from free agency to fill the LD void. Giordano was 39 but still serviceable and declined much slower than anticipated throughout the season and was on a 1 year 2.9 million contract.

Our contract situation -

Demers was in minors at the time of the screenshot.
Ben Hutton was surprisingly put to waivers by LA Kings few weeks before trade deadline of Year 3 so we pounced on the opportunity and claimed him. Depth chart showed he was Top 4 material after Giordano's slow decline. We were going to trade for a LD already but getting Hutton from waivers meant we didn't need to make a trade anymore.
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This is how Year 3 went -



Yes, it's a Presidents Trophy for the first time in franchise history AND Ekman-Larsson won the James Norris!

Did the Presidents Trophy curse affect us? Well...

We lost to an 89 point team in the first round. For the first time in A.Dragon era everyone can agree that the Coyotes choked. UrinatingTree would be mad at this failure.
And they're right. We blew 2-1 and 3-2 series leads. We led in Game 6 after 1st period and Game 7 after 2nd period, blew them both and lost. This failure hurt more than the 2nd round sweep in Year 1. We felt like the team had Cup ambitions this season.
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Offseason - Coyotes make a trade before the draft.

Cernak was getting less icetime than before this season and Lowry had a noticeable decline. All the contracted players acquired from Flames were on expiring contracts, none were extended so they were not a problem, gone by July 1st. Coyotes acquire extra draft picks.
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For anyone curious to see if AI NHL teams have made any crazy trades -

Chayka's high draft pick Hayton traded again in another center swap.


COL acquire Pacioretty as a pure trade deadline acquisition for playoff boost, he was on the last year of his 7 million per year deal. And he worked out brilliantly for them but left to free agency afterward.
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Year 4 up next coming soon. 2023-2024 season.

YEAR 4 -
Sadly the A.Dragon era of Arizona Coyotes has come to an abrupt end at the start of Year 4. Just after 10 games of the season with Arizona with a slow but fixable 4-4-2 start the impatient frustrated confused chairman Alex Meruelo has decided to make a sudden act to fire me. The season's objective set by him was only to make the playoffs as well.

Ended up deleting the screenshot of the start of Coyotes Year 4 roster because the firing got me mildly angry. Well as for roster changes, most notable ones were bringing in Jake Allen as a backup goalie from UFA and Cameron Crotty the bottom 2 D back from Kings in trade as we traded him to Kings in year 3 for a Center prospect who made his NHL debut with Coyotes in Year 4. Ben Hutton remained in the Top 4 for us.


This idiot chairman!!!

Might as well play with "disable human manager sackings" ticked next time because these firings make no sense at times. This one is just plain dumb. Especially when the Head Coach lasts longer than the GM.

And yes I failed with the firstname censor but feck it. I'm tired right now.

As for Coyotes after Dragon firing and what they have -
A young forward core to keep together for years to come. 8 of the top 9 (9 of 9 if that Center prospect from Kings would have worked out) were younger than 28 and in their prime.
Keller - Dubois - Laine
Oloffson - Dvorak - Schmaltz
Bratt - Center prospect from Kings - Garland
Crouse - Haula - Depth Piece

Defense was aging, with Victor Soderstrom as the only obvious future superstar defenseman in the Top 6. Ekman-Larsson and Spurgeon were 32 and 33 each, Ben Hutton was about to hit 30. Cameron Crotty who entered the Top 6 in D made his NHL debut at 24 the only other future D-man with VIctor. De Haan was to be paired with Crotty for this season unless Gerard Gallant had made some swaps in the lineup at times.

Goalies - Ilya Sorokin locked up longterm to be the starter for Arizona until he's 34, was 28 at the time of firing. Our most promising goalie prospect was only 19 and not ready for AHL yet.
Coyotes had plenty of Dragon's draft picks playing in the AHL in Year 4, mainly Year 1 and 2 ones. Some seemed like they could crack the NHL roster in Year 5.

It was noticeable that the Cup Contention window was opened for Coyotes since start of Year 3, maybe even Year 2 and Year 4 should have been a Cup-Contention year as well. Too bad the GM was stabbed in the back just months after a Presidents Trophy win.