Coyotes continue to 'stack' prospect pool at 2023 NHL Draft

NASHVILLE --The Arizona Coyotes continued to stockpile prospects by selecting 12 players in the 2023 Upper Deck NHL Draft.

Arizona has made a combined 31 picks in the three drafts Bill Armstrong has run since he was hired as general manager on Sept. 17, 2020.

"I do feel like it's an exciting time," Coyotes associate director of amateur scouting Ryan Jankowski said. "We were excited after last year's draft with the three first-rounders (Logan Cooley, Conor Geekie, Maveric Lamoureux). Now we add in the forward, the defenseman and the goalies, and it's starting to round out even more now. That's Bill's plan, round this out with really top-notch prospects and a lot of draft picks so that we have what I call stocked cupboards."

That continued stocking started on Wednesday with the selections of Yaroslavl defenseman Dmitriy Simashev at No. 6 and his teammate, forward Danil But, at No. 12.

Simashev (6-foot-4, 198 pounds) was a surprise selection among many experts, but the left-shot defenseman won the Coyotes' scouts over when they were able to see him live. The 18-year-old didn't have a point in 18 games with Yaroslavl in the Kontinental Hockey League this season, but he did have 10 points (one goal, nine assists) in 29 games in the MHL, Russia's junior league.

"We made the trip over to Minsk (Belarus) and we saw him play," Arizona director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski said. "It's one thing to see these guys on video, but you don't get the feeling of how big they are, how well they skate, their skill level. Once we saw him play, we knew this is the guy."

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Plandowski said there was no talk of trading down with the hope that Simashev might be available later in the draft.

"We didn't want to lose him," he said. "If this is the player we want, let's just go get him. It would have crushed us not to get him."

In the process of scouting Simashev, the Coyotes were also able to see But live, and after meeting with both players, they believe that each will come over to the NHL after playing out the remaining two seasons on their KHL contracts.

"They're going to have great situations to play, whether it's in the KHL, where hopefully they play most of their games, or even in the MHL," Jankowski said. "There's opportunities for them to play and develop. It's nice to have players here with us in North America or even in Finland or Sweden, or wherever it is, to let's say be a little bit more hands-on, but most of the players in this draft are two years away anyways, so what we call it is free development. It's good leagues. Those are good hockey players and after two years we see where things are at and then get to a point of, are they ready to come and are they able to come."

Simashev and But (6-5, 203) also showed that the Coyotes prioritized size in their selections. Of their 12 picks, 11 were at least 6-foot-2, led by goalie Michael Hrabal (6-7, 215) of Omaha of the United States Hockey League, who was selected in the second round (No. 38). Nine of the 12 picks also already weigh at least 195 pounds.

"We've got a lot of size, but one thing we made sure of is they're all athletes," Plandowski said. "We wanted athletes, we wanted guys who can skate. Guys are a little bit bigger this year, but they're all good athletes."

Jankowski added that finding skilled players with size has grown into an organizational belief when it comes to building a successful team.

"That's always been Bill's thing, is to be big," he said. "If you look back at his St. Louis drafts and even our drafts in Buffalo, and Darryl's drafts to some extent in Tampa, it's getting some size and being big. It did work out that way. It obviously speaks to what Vegas accomplished this year. You've got your (Clayton) Kellers and your (Logan) Cooleys, and you need to make sure you've got some support around them with some bigger players, too."

The Coyotes won't see the fruits of their labor this week in 2023-24, but there's no questioning that the crop assembled since Armstrong took over is starting to mature.

Defenseman J.J. Moser, a second-round pick (No. 60) in the 2021 NHL Draft, was tied for second among Arizona defensemen with 31 points (seven goals, 24 assists) in 82 games this season. Forward Dylan Guenther, the No. 9 pick in the 2021 draft, had 15 points (six goals, nine assists) in 33 NHL games before returning to juniors, where he had 29 points (13 goals, 16 assists) in 20 games to help Seattle win the Western Hockey League and advance to the Memorial Cup. And Cooley, the No. 3 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, was a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award as the top NCAA men's hockey player after getting 60 points (22 goals, 38 assists) in 39 games as a freshman with the University of Minnesota.

The Coyotes so far have 13 picks in the 2024 NHL Draft, including three each in the second and third round, giving them the chance to find even more prospects next year.

"We've got picks the next couple years, high picks, which is always exciting for the staff," Plandowski said. "It allows you to stack players and see how they develop, but we have lots of good picks and lots of good prospects right now. We'll just see over the next couple of years how they develop."