"I really like to live there and it would have been very hard for me to leave," the defenseman told Swedish website Hockeysverige.se on Wednesday. "I never really wanted to do anything but to stay in Arizona. I'm really happy that it ended this way."
Ekman-Larsson, Arizona's captain the past two seasons, has a full no-movement clause in his contract. He gave the Coyotes an Oct. 9 deadline to trade him to one of two teams, the Vancouver Canucks or Boston Bruins, his agent, Kevin Epp, told TSN on Oct. 6.
"I picked those teams because I didn't want to stand in the way of the team in case they felt like they needed to move me," the 29-year-old said. "That's the person I am. I put those teams there as alternatives, but I never really wanted to move."
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Bill Armstrong, who was hired as Coyotes general manager on Sept. 17, said he had an open line of communication with Ekman-Larsson, who scored 30 points (nine goals, 21 assists) in 66 regular-season games and four points (one goal, three assists) in nine postseason games last season.
"I think I reached out to him before and had a great conversation with him," Armstrong said. "I think I'll do that, and then when he gets back into town, we can talk again. But I think he has to understand too, I was kind of brought into this situation. It's not something that I caused, so I think that I can explain that to him and I think we've had talks about what my job is. He has a job to play and be the captain and be an impact player."