Armstrong, Tourigny Pleased with Year's Progress: Optimistic About Future

The raw numbers tell one undeniable story. Any season that starts with an 11-game winless streak and tacks on a 10-game winless skid near the end won't end well - even when those two stints represent almost half of the 50 losses the Arizona Coyotes endured during a season of rebuilding, massive change and plenty of injuries.

But looking at the other 60 games shows a completely different tale.

It shows a team that held its own against the NHL's best and found its footing during a difficult time. Players who paid off their promise as budding stars and veterans who proved as much to themselves as the rest of the league. Young players who grabbed an opportunity to shine and ran with it and a coaching staff who earned respect and was rewarded with a hard-working team every night.

It showed a 28-goal, 63-point season from rising star Clayton Keller before a leg injury that ended his year but not the optimism for the future. It showed players like Nick Schmaltz (23 goals), Lawson Crouse (20 goals) Barrett Hayton and goalie Karel Vejmelka are key cogs moving forward. And it showed the veteran leadership during renaissance seasons from not only Phil Kessel (52 points) but players like Shayne Gostisbehere (T-7th among NHL defensemen in goals), Jay Beagle, Anton Stralman, Andrew Ladd, Loui Eriksson and Antoine Roussel who showed the way for a long parade of players making their NHL debuts or seeing their first extended action at this level.

A month into the season, the idea of 25 wins seemed like a long shot. By the end, it seemed like they had won more. And in a way, they had.

"I think what we overcame as a group this year will carry on for a long time," Coyotes Head Coach André Tourigny said. "For a lot of these young players…the way we bounced back, the way we found a way to be a competitive team every night from December to the end of March, that says a lot about the character of our team.
"We had a lot of guys who had either breakout years or extreme learning curve years and we had unbelievable leadership from older guys like Ladd, Stralman, Eriksson, Roussel, Beagle and others. It shows why we have the room we have, such a tight brotherhood, and it shows why we were able to bounce back after such a tough stretch in early April to end the season the way we did."

Ah yes, the end. After dropping 10 straight games, the Coyotes ended the season with three straight wins over three teams headed to the Stanley Cup Playoffs - Minnesota, Dallas and Nashville. The Predators were playing for playoff seeding, only to watch the Coyotes rally from 4-0 down to win 5-4.

That last game was an appropriate ending for a team that never conceded anything.

"You look at the effort that our team provided every night and how hard they fought -- that's not an easy year to go through," Coyotes General Manager Bill Armstrong said. "We traded a lot of players and made a lot of moves, and the team didn't give up.

"I think our culture changed with this coaching staff. Our guys fought and if you look at Schmaltz's numbers and Keller and Crouse -- Kessel had over 50 points -- everyone achieved on a team that was thrown together in the process of a rebuild. So you look at the numbers of the star players and the effort the team gave, and it says a lot about the coaches."

It says a lot about the players too. The Coyotes ranked second in the NHL in man games lost to injury this season with long term injuries to Keller, Crouse, top defenseman Jakob Chychrun and others. When added in all the trades and promotions from the Tucson Roadrunners, the Coyotes had an incredible 44 different players suit up for action.

"It's a rebuild and it can be ugly but behind the scenes you don't see how much the players care and the coaches care and how much the losing can wear on people," Armstrong said. "So we have preached around here about the process and how to run a better practice and make sure the food is better and try to move one step closer to being a championship organization every day.

"We started the season and we lost 11 straight. That was interesting to go through. The coaches took a little while to get adjusted to the NHL and it took a while to figure out what we had with some of the older players who hadn't played in a while and some of the younger guys coming in. But I think when we settled in and we found our identity and rhythm as a team and kind of moved forward with a hard-working team that plaed physical and pounded you a little bit. The Kellers and the Schmaltzes and Crouses and J.J. Mosers of the world established themselves and Veggie took hold of the net and there were a lot of positive things.

"Then after the deadline we moved a few bodies and went through a little bit of a lull at the end. We really responded with some big wins and big comebacks down the stretch and that kind of showed what we're all about and the positives of this year."

When asked for the biggest surprise in a season with many, Armstrong pointed to Gostisbehere, who rebounded from a string of challenging and injury-plagued seasons in Philadelphia, playing 22 minutes a night and producing 51 points, including 37 assists which ranked second to Kessel on the team.
"Shayne had a great season for us back there. From the moment Ghost came in he approached the season with energy and effort and bought into what the coaches were doing and he really produced offense for us.
"But there were a lot of guys who came through. We put a lot of pressure on Keller, Schmaltz and Crouse in the offseason and said we expect a lot from you guys, and they responded. So even though we went through what we went through, there are a lot of positives surrounding this club.
So what's next? That was an easy one for Armstrong. The Coyotes will have three first-round draft picks - they have a 13.5 percent chance at the first-overall pick and will find out how high their lottery pick is on May 10 - and four second-round picks in the 2022 NHL Draft. Those seven picks are a chance for Armstrong and the scouting staff to reshape the future of the organization in one weekend.

"I have a list of priorities right now and from 1-10 every one of them says: The Draft, The Draft, The Draft. So we're going to focus in on that and let everything else lie for a little bit," he said. "I've said this since I've been here: The key is to stack one good player on the next good player on the next good player and soon enough you're going to have a good team. That's what we're going to try to do with the draft."