Development Camp, Free Agency Signings Highlight Busy Week for Coyotes

As the Arizona Coyotes kicked off rookie development camp Monday - on the heels of an extremely active free agency period - all eyes are on the up-and-coming Coyotes.

What a future it is.

Arizona kicked off its annual rookie development camp on Monday, highlighted by some of the Coyotes' top prospects. Players like Dylan Guenther (2021, 9th overall), Josh Doan (2021, 37th overall), Logan Cooley (2022, 3rd overall), Conor Geekie (2022, 11th overall), Maveric Lamoureux (2022, 29th overall), and Michael Hrabal (2023, 38th overall), among others.

Different prospects have different roles at the weeklong camp, though all are eyeing their future NHL careers. Guenther, for example, is coming off an incredible 2022-23 campaign in which he won a World Juniors gold medal, WHL championship, played for the Memorial Cup, and appeared in 33 games with the Coyotes last year. He's in his third development camp, and will be looked to help lead and usher in the next wave of Coyotes.

"He will be a leader on our team, and he will be the leader of those guys, so it's important for us to have Dylan here because he will be the leader of our young generation," head coach André Tourigny said. "We believe in his leadership capacity, we believe he already has our DNA, so we want him to be an example for the other guys."

Guenther, who notched 15 points in his NHL appearances last season, is excited to take on the challenge.

"I think it helps me a lot too," he said. "It gives me a new position, a little bit more uncomfortable, and something I can continue to explore out of my comfort zone."

Doan, meanwhile, has yet to appear in the NHL, but he did appear in 14 games with the AHL's Tucson Roadrunners following an impressive two years at Arizona State University.

The 21-year-old recorded three goals and three assists in Tucson, and also chipped in one assist in three playoff games.

"Any time you come to this camp you have an amazing coaching staff, and people around you, so take everything you can from them and go day-by-day to pick up some new tricks and learn some new things," Doan said. "Also, a new aspect being an older guy now, I'll work with the younger guys and get to know them a bit more. I want to make them comfortable; I don't want them coming in here feeling out of place or uncomfortable."

A peek at the prospects this week offers plenty of excitement about the future, but Arizona's active free agency period has also generated buzz for the upcoming season.

Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong signed Nick Bjugstad, Troy Stecher, Jason Zucker, and Alex Kerfoot when free agency opened on July 1, bringing even more firepower to a team that finished at Mullett Arena last year with its best home record since the 2015-16 season. He also traded for defenseman Sean Durzi, who is expected to make an immediate impact on the team's blue line.

Bjugstad and Stecher both played in Arizona in 2022-23 prior to getting traded at the deadline, and both cited the team's culture and coaching staff for reasons they wanted to return.

"That's great for us because it shows how much a player likes to play here," Tourigny said. "They had opportunities to go elsewhere, they had offers elsewhere, and they chose to come back here. They chose to come back to our environment, and they chose to come back to play for their teammates in our brotherhood, in our group.

"Right from the moment they had to leave, they expressed their wish to come back. That shows a lot about our program."

Zucker brings an element of secondary scoring to the team, as he recorded 27 goals and 21 assists in 78 games with the Pittsburgh Penguins last season. Kerfoot, who Armstrong referred to as "glue," offers versatility up-and-down the lineup.

For a team that prides itself on its tough, grind-it-out identity, there will be plenty of that in the upcoming 2023-24 season.

"I think it's really the way you treat people behind the scenes that really counts, and make sure you put them into a place to success," Armstrong said. "If you look at all of our guys that were in here last year, their numbers and our wins were going up."

That adds up to an exciting, optimistic attitude filling the Ice Den this week.

"You walk through that training facility and you see the amount of first rounders, the size of our guys, and where we're moving in a short period of time, and you get excited," Armstrong said. "It's a fun place to be right now."