Coyotes Hope Trade Helps Panik Regain Scoring Touch

GLENDALE --The Coyotes are confident a change of scenery will help forward Richard Panik restore his scoring touch from last season. That's why Arizona acquired him via a trade with Chicago on Wednesday that sent forward Anthony Duclair to the Blackhawks.
Panik scored 22 goals for Chicago a year ago in a breakthrough season, and didn't miss a game.

"We see a player that kind of plays a well-rounded game," Coyotes General Manager John Chayka said. "He's a big, strong player, plays with speed, plays with pace, good goal-scorer. I think when you look at goal-scorers sometimes there's a variation in how they're scoring. We feel like some of it this year has just been some unluckiness. We still think he's playing a well-rounded game, still think he's doing a lot of good things that he was doing in the past. His shooting percentage from areas he's scored in the past is just slightly down this year. We expect that to bounce back."
Panik, 26, has scored 53 goals in his 300-game NHL career since being drafted 52nd overall by Tampa Bay in 2009. The Coyotes are his fourth NHL team after stints with the Lightning, Toronto and Chicago.

"He's 26 years old, so he's still a young veteran but he does provide some veteran experience and takes a bit of a load off some of our younger players that are 19, 20 years old and they're playing up against top players," Chayka said. "Richard's been able to play up against top players and have some success. That's a void we were looking to fill and felt that he'd be a good fit for us."
Panik notched six goals in 37 games for Chicago this season before the trade. His goal on Tuesday was his first since Oct. 21 when he scored vs. Arizona.
"I think I had a really good training camp and I started pretty good and then I had a slump," Panik said. "It took a longer time than I expected to get out of it ... I think lately, the last few games, I've played really good."
Panik played his first pro hockey season for the Norfolk Admirals of the American Hockey League in 2011-12. While there, he was part of Norfolk's amazing 28-game winning streak and its run to winning the Calder Cup championship. He scored 19 goals in 64 games that season, plus five more in the playoffs, including one in Norfolk's Cup-clinching victory over Toronto. His resume also features playing for Slovakia at the 2010 IIHF World Championship and at the 2014 Olympics.
"The plan for me is just to play my game," Panik said. "... Just bring it every night and help them win a few games. That's where my main focus is."
Arizona also sent defenseman Adam Clendening to Chicago and re-acquired forward Laurent Dauphin from the Blackhawks as part of the Panik-for-Duclair trade. The Coyotes drafted Dauphin 39th overall in 2013, but packaged him with defenseman Connor Murphy in last summer's trade that landed defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson.
"We're excited to get him back," Chayka said. "He's a guy that my staff has a lot of passion for. We feel he's just strength away from being a really impactful player for us at the National Hockey League level. So, we'll get him here and get him back on track. We think he's going to be a nice piece as we move forward. He's just a real hard-working, dedicated athlete that brings it every single night and that's what we're looking for."

Dauphin, who notched four goals and 10 assists in 33 games for Rockford (AHL) this season, will report to Arizona's top affiliate in Tucson.
Regarding Duclair, who produced 34 goals and 40 assists for the Coyotes in 172 games, Chayka said: "It's a tough trade to make since he's obviously a very talented player. For us, it was just the determination that this was the best time to move forward."
He added, "It's gone back for a few years now where the team wasn't particularly happy with the player and the player wasn't particularly happy with the team. We worked through some things, tried a lot of different approaches in a lot of different ways. As things seemed to evolve, it kept coming back that it was probably best for a change of scenery for both sides. So, I've been trying to find a fit that made sense for Anthony and made sense for us. I felt this was our best opportunity."