Cooley Settling in to Training Camp as Coyotes Wrap up Day 2

MELBOURNE, Australia -- Logan Cooley isn’t just adjusting his sleep schedule in Australia; He’s also adjusting his style of play for the NHL level.

The 19-year-old forward finished his second day of training camp on Tuesday, capping a whirlwind few days of travel, competition, and practice. In addition to his first official NHL training camp, Cooley and fellow forward Dylan Guenther played in the first game of the Coyotes’ weekend at the 2023 NHL Rookie Faceoff in Las Vegas on Friday before joining the main team in its journey to the Southern Hemisphere last weekend.

Now, he’s caught up on sleep and bonding with his teammates, all while settling in with some of the most experienced players on the Coyotes’ roster.

“I’m learning from all the guys on the team, just little details on the ice,” Cooley said. “It’s cool to see how you can learn different things, especially being with a guy like (Jason) Zucker, he’s helped a lot.”

Zucker is in a unique position with Arizona after signing a one-year deal with the club in July, as he is one of the most veteran players on the team at just 31 years old. He spent the last four seasons in Pittsburgh, playing alongside superstars like Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, and has quickly taken on a mentoring role to some of the club’s youngest talent.

He said he’s been impressed with how the young Coyotes have performed to this point in camp, including Cooley, who has yet to play in an NHL game.

“He’s a great player,” Zucker said. “It will be great to see how he develops through training camp here, and into the season. We’ll try to help him as best we can from the elder perspective, but his talent will just take over, he’ll just play hockey, and that’s the number one thing you can do.”

Cooley dominated in his first-and-only season with the NCAA’s Minnesota Golden Gophers, finishing as a Hobey Baker Award Finalist after posting 22 goals and 38 assists in 39 total games. He also chipped in 14 points in seven games for Team USA at the 2023 World Junior Championship, establishing himself as one of the game’s top NHL prospects.

He said his first few games with the main roster has already taught him a lot about areas he needs to focus on, but also cited a commonly-listed adjustment from almost all newcomers to NHL-caliber play: The pace.

“I’ve been noticing during practice when to make moves and when not to make moves,” Cooley said. “I think it’s just little adjustments like that … I don’t think it’s been too crazy so far, but I’d say just the speed of the game is quicker.”

Coyotes head coach André Tourigny has repeatedly said it typically takes at least three weeks to see how players are adjusting, but for now, Cooley’s most important responsibility is to be a sponge and leverage veterans such as Zucker for how to focus on his game and his work ethic, both on-and-off the ice.

Tourigny did say Cooley has already shown sound decision-making on breakout plays and will likely see some time on one of the team’s power-play units on at Thursday’s practice.

“For me, it’s more about soaking up the information for him -- soaking in the information, the environment, all of it,” Tourigny said. “We will start to work on D-zone stuff, so we’ll see how he runs his routes. He was pretty good on the breakout, he was running his routes.

“For a coach, it’s more that. I want to see how he is acclimating, taking in information, adjusting his game, and adjusting his play.”

The Coyotes are stacked with young skaters who have already gone through these motions in the not-so-distant past. Guenther (20 years old, 33 NHL games), Matias Maccelli (22 years old, 87 NHL games), J.J. Moser (23 years old, 125 NHL games), Barrett Hayton (23 years old, 176 NHL games), and Jack McBain (23 years old, 92 NHL games) have all earned their stripes recently, setting the stage for promising careers in the league.

Those budding players, along with a stacked development system, offers fans plenty of reasons for optimism heading into not only the 2023-24 season, but well into the future.

“When you’ve been around long enough, you know how hard it is to find good talent in this league,” Zucker said. “Every team has one or two, but the teams that don’t, it seems like you can never find them. For the Coyotes, now, it’s great to have four or five of those really young, stud players, and for us, that goes a really long way.”

Undoubtedly one of those players, Cooley has maintained an even-keeled attitude as he tries to earn a roster spot for the Coyotes’ season opener on Oct. 13 against the New Jersey Devils. Moreover, he’s already learning what he needs to do in order to have a successful NHL career.

Just play his game.

“Just being a center is my two-way game, using my speed, and not trying to force too many plays,” Cooley said. “I’m focusing on the small details of my game, and the rest will take care of itself. I think when I’m doing those things, that’s when I’m at my best.”