Morning Meltdown – Arizona Coyotes Edition
By Mario Hicks
For this Morning Meltdown let’s take a look into some of the buzz surrounding the Arizona Coyotes.
The Phoenix Coyotes are now the Arizona Coyotes, a team that has missed the postseason for two straight years and looks poised to make it a third consecutive also-ran run in 2014-15.
"“What We Learned in 2013-14“We went into this hopeful, and we’re very, very happy, very grateful not only to the councilmembers here, but all the residents and taxpayers here,” Renaissance Sports & Entertainment partner Anthony LeBlanc said at the time of the council’s decision. “We are looking forward to a solid partnership and making this a [success] for all those concerned.”The happenings off the ice were just as important as the happenings on the ice for the 2013-14 Coyotes; neither turned out to be very encouraging.The Coyotes were the picture of mediocrity; they finished 37-30-15, two points out of a playoff spot in the West and 18th in the overall league standings. In terms of their underlying numbers, it’s hard to have a more average season, as they lost the season-long Fenwick battle 2,665-2,663 and finished 16th in Fenwick differential.”"
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Is Sam Gagner a center or a wing? That question is preoccupying coach Dave Tippett as the Coyotes wind down the preseason.
"“It’s the same question the Edmonton Oilers never fully answered before dealing him to Tampa, which shipped him to Arizona about an hour later, along with B.J. Crombeen, on June 30.For the first 10 days of training camp, Tippett had Gagner playing exclusively at center. But at Sunday’s practice, he moved Gagner to right wing, where he will likely finish the preseason, although he won’t play in Wednesday’s game against his old team in Edmonton because he is still nursing an upper-body injury.“I wanted to look at him (at center). I didn’t want him to come in thinking he was automatically getting switched to somewhere else,” said Tippett, who must weigh more than Gagner’s desires when making his decision. “It’s how we mix. Do we want a third line checking line where he doesn’t really fit? Do we want to put our top six forwards all together? There’s lot of factors coming into play here, and he’s the one piece of the whole thing where we have to figure out where that goes.”"
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