Diehards in those cities have a collective 56 years of suffering, pining for the return of teams they still love, everyone by now fully realizing there is zero hope they’ll ever return.
Now it’s Arizona’s time to be tossed into that empty barrel of hope, at least for a few years, perhaps forever. The Coyotes, the desert’s once-promising franchise turned into a dinky-rink operation, are headed to the unproven NHL market that is Salt Lake City.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, long the Desert Dogs’ best and most loyal friend, has brokered a deal that will hand Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo about $1 billion. That’s a tidy sum for turning a viable big league franchise into a sports industry punch line, the club playing these last couple of seasons in a single-tiered, honey-I-shrunk-the-rink (Mullett Arena) with a seating capacity of 5,000 (some 70 percent below typical standards).
The new Dogs handler, Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith, reportedly paid some $1.3 billion for the sad-sack Arizona franchise — a 100 percent bump over what the Kraken forked over in the latest round of expansion — which leaves roughly $300 million vig for the league and its 31 other franchises to party like it’s, well, 2024.
Meanwhile, the added sweetener here for Meruelo, as further reward for turning the franchise and its following into tumbleweeds, is that he retains the right these next five years to buy back into the league in the next round of expansion. Presumably, he’ll have to hand back at least the $1 billion he grossed in this sale, all for the right to mess things up yet again.
Keep in mind, the NHL reserves the right not to allow Meruelo back in unless he finally has a viable ownership model, consisting mainly of a bona fide arena (upper bowl, lounges, hot and cold water). He’s tried repeatedly to do that before, the latest of his bungled failures occurring in May of last year when voters in Tempe rejected his plan to build a $2 billion-plus entertainment district that would have included a 16,000-seat arena.
Now Meruelo has his eyes fixed on a similar build-out in north Phoenix, provided he can secure a 95-acre parcel of land that goes up for public auction June 27. One day he’s bound to get it right, right?
To summarize: The NHL has scrambled to vacate a major US market gone fallow in a pillbox of an arena, and moved it to yet a non-traditional hockey market, one significantly smaller in population base, but one that at least has a viable arena (Delta Center) to welcome an Original 32 orphan.
All of this while the Houston market (population: 2.3 million), with its hockey-ready Toyota Center (capacity: 17,800) remains emptier than the current Bruins power play. Downtown Dallas, home of the Stars, is only some 240 miles north of Houston. It’s a potential great rivalry that has been waiting to happen since the Stars, nomads out Minneapolis, took up residence in Dallas in 1993.
Both Houston and the greater Phoenix-Scottsdale markets easily should be able to make the NHL work. Houston simply has been ignored (dismissed?) for far too long. Arizona, through multiple ownerships and arenas, made the least of a golden opportunity, hand in hand with the hamfisted direction/oversight from league headquarters.
Salt Lake City doesn’t have the equal of those two markets, in terms of population or corporate/business base. But it has a rich, committed, and enthusiastic owner and only his sister NBA Jazz franchise to compete for fans and corporations willing to shell out big money for seats and suites. It should be OK, if the market can tolerate NHL pricing.
Meanwhile, Arizona hockey fans are left with their hopes on hold, hands shoved in empty pockets. The league sometimes makes things right, as it did in providing resets in Minnesota (Wild), Winnipeg (Jets, Part Deux), and Atlanta (home of the failed Flames and Thrashers).
Quebec City and Hartford proved to be one and done. Arizona proved to be the unnecessary mess that took far too long to fix — and took the hearts of loyal fans with it.
TRY, TRY AGAIN
Sabres again
in need of coach
Prior to the Sabres cleaning out their lockers in the hours after their win Monday night in Tampa that served as their season closeout, Don Granato was told to clean out his desk, hand over his whistle, and pack his bags, too.
Granato, 56, became the seventh head coach dismissed by the Sabres since Terry Pegula bought them in the spring of 2011. The gong show of the unemployed began with Lindy Ruff (fired this season by the Devils), followed by Ron Rolston, Ted Nolan, Dan Bylsma, Phil Housley, Ralph Krueger, and now Granato. General manager Kevyn Adams, long ago a Bruins draft pick (No. 25, 1993), said emphatically at Granato’s farewell press conference that the new hire will bring “experience” and “pedigree” to the job. For most of the week, that generated widespread speculation that Adams will consider recyclables such Craig Berube, Bruce Boudreau, Gerard Gallant, Joel Quenneville, and others.
A name missing from the myriad lists of speculation: Claude Julien. The ex-Bruins bench boss, who coaxed the Black and Gold to their Stanley Cup title in 2011, will be 64 on Wednesday. He fit Adams’s job description to a T when the GM said he wanted someone who can satisfy player craving for “accountability and structure.”
Julien’s approach is simple, straightforward, old-school basic, and structured. Let’s not forget he was the guy who onboarded future stars Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak, and Tuukka Rask, while also allowing a near-forgotten Tim Thomas to take the net and thrive. There are some far worse picks than Julien for the job, and frankly, many of them can be found on that list of Pegula’s ex-coaches.
Here in the Hub of Hockey for one of the club’s recent Centennial theme nights, Julien said he’d like to get back behind a bench and wasn’t picky about a franchise’s stage of Cup readiness.
“I like to think I can work with any team, no matter where it’s at,” said Julien, who lives these days in Ottawa. “Just so long as everyone — owner, front office — is realistic and on the same page.”
Pegula, who also owns the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, has paid out nearly $1 billion in player salaries since his first full season of Sabres ownership, his club yet to qualify for the playoffs in that stretch. Ideally, the next coach will arrive with whistle and magic wand.
ETC.
Bruins could use
a power surge
The Bruins stumbled along with only three power-play goals in their final dozen regular-season games, which contributed to their fall to No. 14 (22.2 percent) in the league’s rankings.
It was a striking dip from the start of the season, when the Black and Gold connected 14 times on the power play in their opening 18 games (14-1-3). David Pastrnak (4) and James van Riemsdyk (3) accounted for half the haul.
Over these last four seasons, two under Bruce Cassidy and two under Jim Montgomery, the power play by and large has been pedestrian. Beginning with 2020-21, the Bruins finished 10th (21.9 percent), 15th (21.2), 12th (22.2), and now 14th. Decidedly ho-hum.
In the previous four seasons, with Torey Krug the power-play quarterback, the unit was always top-10-caliber, finishing seventh (21.7) in 2016-17, then fourth (23.6), third (25.9), and second (25.2).
Krug produced 15 goals and 107 points on the power play in those four prime seasons, only to be left unsigned and free to walk to St. Louis as a free agent at the end of 2019-20. The Bruins have not replaced the little big man’s power-play punch since.
In the four years since Krug has been gone, Charlie McAvoy has evolved as the No. 1 point man. He scored but one power-play this season, finishing 1-12–13 on the advantage. In the four years post- Krug, McAvoy on the power play has tallied eight goals and 61 points — a 43 percent discount on what Krug put up in his final four seasons in Boston.
The slide on the advantage the last four years cannot be traced solely to McAvoy, just as the success the prior four seasons wasn’t all Krug’s doing. But clearly, the unit’s threat factor has diminished in lockstep with the numbers, and the Bruins, no matter what happens in the playoffs, need to improve the backend firepower for next season.
Long way from Chicago
The KHL’s Gagarin Cup finals began Thursday, pitting Magnitogorsk against Lokomotiv, each of which have a former Blackhawks draft pick in the lineup.
Lokomotiv forward Max Shalunov, chosen 109th by the Blackhawks in the 2011 draft, led the club this season with 36 points. Shalunov took a one-year twirl in the minor pros but returned and has played exclusively in Russia the last 10 years, including four seasons with Red Army.
Luke Johnson, the lone North American on the two rosters, went No. 134 to the Blackhawks in 2013. Once a promising University of North Dakota center, he played only 32 NHL games (Blackhawks, Wild) and hooked on with Magnitogorsk this season after toiling in the AHL the prior two years.
A familiar name also on the Magnitogorsk roster: Danila Kvartalnov. The 26-year-old center is the nephew of ex-Bruin Dmitri “Hoss” Kvartlanov, once a proud member of the Bruins’ prolific Bonanza Line with Little Joe Juneau and Adam Oates.
Loose pucks
The prolific Auston Matthews, In Boston Saturday with the Maple Leafs for Game 1 against the Bruins, finished with 69 goals, one stroke short of becoming the ninth NHLer to reach 70 in a season. Bruin Phil Esposito was the first, potting 76 withthe 1970-71 team that was derailed in the playoffs by rookie Canadiens goaltender Ken Dryden. Others to reach the mark: Wayne Gretzky (four times), Brett Hull (3), Mario Lemieux (2), Jari Kurri, Bernie Nicholls, Alexander Mogilny, and Teemu Selanne. The latter two remain the last to do it, each connecting for 76 in 1992-93. Mogilny is the lone one in the bunch not yet to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, a glaring omission by the hallowed Hall . . . The Rangers-Capitals series brings together the brothers Lindgren, Charlie Lindgren in the Capitals’ net and Ryan Lindgren on the Rangers’ blue line. Charlie, 30, was never drafted out of St. Cloud State and turned pro with the Canadiens. Ryan, 26, was a Bruins draft pick (No. 49, 2016) and was dished less than 24 months later, to the Rangers in the 2018 deadline deal that brought Rick Nash to Boston . . . His scoring hands all but frozen much of the season, Alex Ovechkin finally logged in at 31-34–65, increasing his career goal total to 853. The Great Ovie, with two years remaining on his Capitals deal ($9.5 million per season), needs 42 goals to top Gretzky’s record of 894. Ovechkin, who will be 39 in September, has potted 149 goals these last four seasons. The Great One called it quits at age 38 in the spring of 1999. The game’s most prolific scorer put only 80 pucks in the net over his last four seasons . . . Free agent-to-be Jake Guentzel, swapped from the FSG Penguins to Carolina at the deadline, delivered on demand, posting 8-17–25 in his 17 regular-season games. Michael Bunting, who went to the Penguins, also put up solid numbers (6-13–19 in 21 games). A left-shot center who will turn 30 in October, the savvy Guentzel would be a great get for the Bruins,at the right price. He is likely to get offers for, say, five years/$40 million, a stiff number. But eight years ago, the Bruins lavished UFA David Backes, then 32, with a five-year/$30 million package. Guentzel is leaner, faster, and more productive with the puck than Backes, as well as two years younger than Backes was upon arrival . . . Tim Thomas’s former agent, Bill Zito, added duties of president of hockey operations in Florida, where he has been GM since September 2020. Zito has three significant UFAs to lock down, Sam Reinhart, Brandon Montour and Vladimir Tarasenko, the latter of whom came aboard at the deadline. “I think I can get them all done,” said Zito, his primary focus likely on Reinhart and Montour. “I have a plan that can work, will work, if they can be patient.” He wouldn’t reveal the plan. With teams such as the Devils and Flyers also in need of legit goaltending, perhaps Zito will consider moving Sergei Bobrovsky and his $10 million-a-year deal, written by ex-Panthers GM Dale Tallon . . . According to GM Don Sweeney, no NHL clubs have asked permission to contact any member of his coaching or management teams about leaving the Bruins. He made clear he wouldn’t block a request. “The bottom line,” said Sweeney, “is our organization would support anybody that has an opportunity to move up in a job they would like.” . . . Will miss seeing good pal Jack Edwards around the rink, and of course miss his on-air work, now that he’s decided to put down the microphone after nearly 20 years in the NESN booth. In your faithful puck chronicler’s near half-century of this sweet and sometimes maddening grind, the successful always have separated themselves not only by their love of the game and its people — the easy part — but their passion for work, their drive to own the job, meet the task. TV, unlike print, also is a performing art, a vastly different discipline and an added layer of difficulty. Edwards checked every box and did so with a unique style in a TV industry underpinned by quicksand and managed by the feckless. Bravo, pal, and stick taps.
Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com.
