Rebuilding. It’s one of the ugliest words in sports. When one thinks of the term, the unpleasantness of the early 2010s Philadelphia 76ers, the late 2010’s Miami Marlins, and the… well, long-lasting New York Jets rebuild come to mind. These rebuilds, while promising ideas in theory, have not borne fruit, at least not yet. Most rebuilds do not, and hockey is no exception. If there is one predictable facet of the NHL, the bad teams generally tend to stay bad, with rare exceptions in teams such as the Florida Panthers coming out of a rebuild stronger. With such an unsightly stigma around the concept of rebuilding, especially in hockey, it is quite common for front offices to stray away from the idea, often using terms such as “regearing” or “retooling” to mask the fact that their teams are being given the 270 Park Avenue treatment. However, Arizona Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong does not care for such beating around the bush. His team is absolutely rebuilding, and he knows that you are aware of this. He does not care for your plight nor your sentimentality. In the world of sports, sentimentality is a weakness. No asset, player, or coach is of any true value to Bill Armstrong unless they contribute to winning. On a team like the Coyotes, such winning assets were few and far between. Let the decimation begin. 

Armstrong wasted no time beginning his rebuild of the Coyotes when the offseason began, beginning with a quick two-transaction combo on July 17^th, 2021. Promising young goaltender Adin Hill and a 7^th round draft pick in 2022 were shipped off to the San Jose Sharks for AHL goaltender Josef Korenar and a 2^nd round draft pick in 2022. A pretty conventional trade, right? Well, this is where the convention of Bill Armstrong’s revolutionary rebuild stops. Hours later, Arizona was traded New York Islanders alternate captain Andrew Ladd, as well as the Colorado Avalanche’s 2^nd round pick in 2021, as well as the Islanders’ conditional 2^nd and 3^rd round picks in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Such a haul of picks and a player would normally be expected to warrant a solid return, but the Coyotes only gave up future considerations (essentially the hockey variant of nothing) in exchange for this player and these picks. How could such a trade be agreed to?  

The answer is evident when one looks at Andrew Ladd’s production and contract. In the 2020-2021 season, Andrew Ladd played in just four games, scoring one point. The rest of the season, Ladd was a healthy scratch. Ladd’s contract includes an annual salary of $5.5 million per year. He is essentially a net negative for any team due to the strain that he puts on a team’s salary cap with his lack of production to justify such earnings. As such, the Islanders would essentially have to bribe any team that can and wants to take on a contract such as Ladd’s with a bounty of draft picks, and the cap-abundant Coyotes were happy to take on one of hockey’s most atrocious contracts for the right price. 

This is certainly quite an intelligent trade, but Bill Armstrong’s managerial genius doesn’t just extend to one deal. 5 days later, on July 22^nd, 2022, the Philadelphia Flyers, one of the NHL’s most notably incompetent trading teams, would send defenseman and thought-to-be-unmovable contract Shane Gostisbehere to the Coyotes along with a 2^nd round draft pick in 2022 and the St. Louis Blues’ 7^th round draft pick in 2022, once again in exchange for future considerations. While this was already a great trade for the Coyotes, it would soon become even sweeter as Gostisbehere returned to fine form in the 2021-2022 season, having his best season since 2018-2019 and proving that he can still stay healthy and be a positive contributing piece. The Coyotes appear to have successfully renovated Gostisbehere from an unmovable anchor contract into a valuable asset and his departure from the squad could net them a solid return, presumably in the form of even more draft picks. 

Perhaps Armstrong’s biggest hockey heist occurred the very next day, on July 23^rd, 2022. In a bold move that has appeared to signify the ushering in of a new era in the Arizona Coyotes organization, team captain and first-pairing defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson along with blossoming star Connor Garland were shipped off to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for aging and underperforming bottom-6 talents Loui Eriksson, Antoine Roussel, and Jay Beagle, as well as a 1^st round draft pick in 2021, a 2^nd round draft pick in 2022, and a 7^th round draft pick in 2023. While this trade may seem somewhat lopsided in favor of the Canucks, deeper insight into Oliver Ekman Larsson’s stats have suggested that the veteran defenseman is one of the worst players in the NHL for how large his contract is. Garland, while talented, was in a contract year, and did not appear to want to stay with Arizona. This trade not only allowed the Coyotes to move a colossal contractual dead weight off of their backs in the form of Ekman-Larsson, but also net a great return of draft picks in exchange for taking on some more bad contracts that will soon be off the team’s books. 

Through these trades, among others, the Arizona Coyotes have amassed an astounding 13 picks this season, with 10 of them being in the first 3 rounds of the NHL draft over the next few seasons. Bill Armstrong has continued to take on failed contracts this season, such as on September 4^th, 2021, in which the Coyotes sent 2^nd line center Christian Dvorak to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for a 1^st and 3^rd round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft from the Carolina Hurricanes. Another such trade also occurred as recently as February 22^nd, 2022, in which Armstrong traded forward Ryan Dzingel and defenseman Ilya Lybushkin to the seemingly playoff-bound Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange underachieving forward Nick Ritcie and a conditional 2^nd round draft pick in 2025 or a 3^rd round draft pick in 2023. Plus, if Ritcie can regain some value prior to the NHL’s trade deadline, Arizona can flip him for even more assets. 

The Arizona Coyotes have evolved from a team that appeared to not have any sense of direction into one of the most promising future teams in the NHL. And with the possible trade of star defenseman Jakob Chychrun, as well as having a strong possibility of landing the first overall pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, the future is looking incredibly bright for the Arizona Coyotes.