Can the Wild Find Goals from the Arizona Coyotes roster?
The Minnesota Wild are looking for goals or, more to the point, players who score goals. We already covered the Wild’s roster in the first part of this 31-part series! You can see other parts here: Chasing Goals on…
Minnesota Wild | Anaheim Ducks | Arizona Coyotes | Boston Bruins
Buffalo Sabres | Calgary Flames | Carolina Hurricanes | Chicago Blackhawks
Colorado Avalanche | Columbus Blue Jackets Dallas Stars | Detroit Red Wings
Edmonton Oilers | Florida Panthers | Los Angeles Kings | Montreal Canadiens
Nashville Predators | New Jersey Devils | New York Islanders | New York Rangers
Ottawa Senators | Philadelphia Flyers | Pittsburgh Penguins | San Jose Sharks
St. Louis Blues | Tampa Bay Lightning | Toronto Maple Leafs | Vancouver Canucks
Vegas Golden Knights | Washington Capitals | Winnipeg Jets
One of the problems with “Chasing Goals” is every team is trying to do the same thing. No team wants to give up a goal-scorer when they find one so this is no easy task for the Minnesota Wild and General Manager Paul Fenton. That being said, we are going to point out some options available to the Wild on each NHL team and the only limit we’re going to put on those options is they have to be able to help the Wild score goals next season so they have to already be playing or, at least, played some games in the NHL. We may point out some prospects that look like they could help but it’s very difficult to judge what a player can do in the NHL based on stats from even the AHL let alone NCAA Hockey & the Canadian Junior Hockey Leagues. The Foreign leagues are usually even more difficult to judge because they are top professional leagues and the prospects are usually not playing top line minutes so their stats reflect that.
Next up is….the Arizona Coyotes.
The Coyotes finished 4 points out of a Wild Card Playoff spot but, like the Minnesota Wild, they had a negative goal differential. Arizona scored 213 goals but gave up 223. The Wild scored 211 goals but gave up 237. They also, like the Minnesota Wild, ended their season with just 3 wins in their last 10 games.
So, Arizona is basically in the same boat as the Wild right now. They are looking for goal-scorers so it’s hard to find very many players on their roster that the Wild would be interested in from a goal-scoring standpoint but there is one.
F Alex Galchenyuk was acquired by Arizona in a trade with Montreal in the middle of last June for F Max Domi and the Coyotes fans are probably not real fond of this trade right now. Domi had 28 goals & 44 assists for 72 points and he was a +20 while Galchenyuk had 19 goals and 22 assists for 41 points and he was a -19 but, Galchenyuk might be the better goal-scorer. He also produces more on the power play.
Alex Galchenyuk: 25-years-old; Contract: 1 year, $4.9M Cap Hit
2019 Stats: 19 goals, 22 assists in 72 games; Power Play: 9 G, 12 A
NHL Totals: 127 G, 166 A in 490 gms; Power Play: 39 G, 60 A
Highlights
- The first thing that sticks out is the lack of shooting. Goal-scorers shoot the puck and should probably average over 3 shots per games so around 250 over an 82-game season. In 72 games in 2018-19, Alex shot the puck 159 times. He was scoring on 11.9% of his shots so why not shoot more?
- Is it because he doesn’t have the players to get him the puck or is it because he doesn’t look to shoot often enough?
- The power play is a big deal and it might be why Paul Fenton pursued F Phil Kessel.
He’s had a 30-goal season before and, one of the biggest reasons to try to acquire him is his play on the man-advantage. In the last couple seasons, he’s produced well on the power play, 24 points (9 goals) in 2017-18 & 21 points (9 goals) in 2018-19. The top Wild players in Power Play Points were Fs Mikael Granlund & Zach Parise with 16 points each.
Galchenyuk has 1-year left on his contract for $4.9M so he might not be that hard to acquire, straight up for Zucker could be doable. Would you do that deal? That “Hockey Trade”?
The Power Play production might tip the scales to yes for us.
Let us know what you think in the comments or on social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) &…ALWAYS…
