If no results appear, use Enter to do a full site search. Premium Premium Suites Events Calendar. Fan Zone. Coyotes Care. See Full Story. Coyotes Primary Logo. Coyotes Alternate Logo. Coyotes Wordmark Logo. Coyotes Concept Logo. Sports History. On April 11, , CEO Jeff Shumway announced that general manager Michael Barnett Gretzky's agent for over 20 years , senior executive vice president of hockey operations Cliff Fletcher , and San Antonio Rampage 's general manager and Coyotes' assistant general manager Laurence Gilman "have been relieved of their duties.
As per club policy, terms of the contract were not disclosed. The —08 season was something of a resurgence for the Coyotes. After their disastrous —07 campaign, the Coyotes looked to rebuild the team by relying on their drafted talent such as Peter Mueller and Martin Hanzal to make the team successful as opposed to using free agency. The team signed both Alex Auld and David Aebischer to compete for the starting goaltender position with Mikael Tellqvist acting as the backup goaltender.
Neither Auld or Aebischer were able to hold on to the starting position, leaving the Coyotes to turn to the waiver wire for assistance. Bryzgalov responded by not only starting in goal the day he was acquired, but posting a shutout in his Coyotes debut against the Los Angeles Kings.
Bryzgalov was soon given a 3-year contract extension because of his high level of play. Despite predictions of another disastrous season, the Coyotes played competitive hockey for most of the season. However, they finished eight points short of the last playoff spot, with 83 points. In December , the media became aware that the Coyotes were suffering massive losses, and the NHL was paying the team's bills. However, Moyes had secretly given operational control of the team to the league.
Moyes intended to sell the team to Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie who intended to purchase the team out of bankruptcy and move it to Hamilton, Ontario. The NHL responded by stripping Moyes of his remaining ownership authority. From May until September , hearings were held in Phoenix bankruptcy court to determine the fate of the Coyotes and the holding company.
Two potential bidders for the team surfaced, Reinsdorf and Ice Edge Holdings. Ultimately, the bankruptcy court voided the planned sale to Balsillie, accepting the league's argument that bankruptcy could not be used to circumvent league rules. The NHL's initial bid was also declared insufficient, but the judge left the window open to an improved bid. The NHL has yet to deal with the purchase. The National Post criticized both bids, as both were conditional on municipal taxpayers to cover any losses that the Coyotes might incur, and suggested that keeping the team in Phoenix was never economically viable.
In July , the Ice Edge bid collapsed, as it did not satisfy Glendale's financial conditions. Ice Edge decided to concentrate on an effort to buy a minor league team. The City of Glendale had to step in and guarantee the team's losses for —11 as a precondition of the NHL not transferring the franchise. A consortium of investors led by Chicago investor Matt Hulsizer then reached a deal to purchase the Coyotes from the NHL along with a lease agreement with Glendale.
However, the Hulsizer deal collapsed in late June at least in part due to a threatened suit by the Goldwater Institute over the legality of payments Glendale would make to Hulsizer prior to the consortium buying the team.
The threat of the suit may have prevented the sale of bonds to finance the payments. A deal to former San Jose Sharks owner Greg Jamison had been drafted but failed to be finalized and fulfilled by January 31, The deal would have seen the Coyotes stay in Phoenix for the next 20 years relying on a tax payer subsidy, according to the agreement.
It would also have had 'Phoenix' dropped from the name and instead use the more inclusive term 'Arizona'. California investment executive Darin Pastor also submitted a bid to buy the Coyotes. His bid proposed to keep the team in the Glendale area while engaging young hockey players in the region through school partnerships and scholarship efforts. In just 61 games, Tippett led the Coyotes to more wins in their —10 regular season 37 than their previous season 36 , en route to the first win season in the franchise's NHL history.
On March 27, , the Coyotes clinched a playoff spot, their first playoff spot since the —02 season, and in the process, reached the point mark for the first time ever as an NHL team, and the first time overall since the —78 WHA Jets notched points.
This was good enough for fourth overall in the league, tying the —85 Jets for the franchise's highest finish as an NHL team. They also notched the fourth seed in the Western Conference, giving them home-ice advantage in the first round for the first time since Game one of the series was the first NHL playoff game to be played in Jobing.
However, an injury to Doan sidelined him for most of the series, and the veteran Red Wings ultimately defeated the Coyotes in seven games.
In the following year, the Coyotes played the Detroit Red Wings for the second straight postseason, in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Coyotes were swept in four games. In the first round, they defeated the Chicago Blackhawks in six games, notching the franchise's first playoff series win since They faced the Nashville Predators in the second round, winning the first two games and the series 4—1.
However, the Coyotes fell to the Los Angeles Kings in game five of a 4—1 series. Due to the team's bankruptcy status since and the annual revenue lost each year, the NHL planned to move the Coyotes should a deal with the city for a new lease and new ownership not be decided by July 2, The plan was to move the franchise to a new city, likely Seattle. On January 29, , the new ownership group announced that the team would change its name to the "Arizona Coyotes" for the season.
According to Coyotes president Anthony LeBlanc, the change is being made to reflect that the team is no longer based in Phoenix and to include all hockey fans in the state of Arizona. Aside from a new shoulder patch, the team's uniform design will not change. Arizona State University and the Coyotes announced plans in November of to build a new arena near the campus of the university in Tempe, Arizona to become home for both hockey teams.
However, on February 3, the university backed out of the deal with the NHL team stating it had not intention of working on a development agreement, an option to lease or any other agreement with the NHL Club [16]. Upon their arrival in Phoenix in , the team adopted a look with a strong Southwestern flavor. The primary logo was a stylized hockey stick-wielding coyote in a kachina-inspired style. The jerseys featured pointed green shoulders with brick red trim over a white home or black road body, and non-traditional striping patterns.
These uniforms remained in place until A third jersey, primarily green with a nighttime desert landscape wrapped around the bottom and the cuffs of the sleeves, was introduced in , and retired in As the NHL switched home and road jerseys beginning in the —04 season, and coinciding with the team's move from America West to the newly completed Glendale Arena, the Coyotes redesigned their look completely, adopting the current howling coyote head logo, while dropping several colors from the team's palette.
Sedona red and white became the primary colors, with desert sand and black remaining as logo trim colors. The uniform's simplified two-color scheme with three stripes on each sleeve and the tail bears some resemblance to later versions of the Montreal Maroons jerseys. The team also changed its shoulder patch, taking the form of the outline of the state of Arizona, with an homage to the state flag and the abbreviation "PHX".
This logo was worn on the right shoulder only, with the left shoulder now bare. The Coyotes updated their jerseys for the —08 season, along with all NHL teams, as part of the switchover to Rbk Edge jerseys. The changes made were adding an NHL crest just below the neck opening, removing the stripes that were previously just above the lower hem, and moving the "PHX" patch from the right to the left shoulder.
The white jersey also gained red shoulder coloring and laces at the collar. The three-stripe pattern is applied to the side of the pants. The Coyotes also added a third jersey for the — season. First, the obvious.
In being named to the post Gutierrez becomes the first Latino president and CEO in NHL history, and together Meruelo and Gutierrez represent the two most powerful men in the franchise, both Latino, which is important in a market where roughly 40 percent of the fan base is Latin American. Now, the less obvious, but every bit as important. There are two things that, above all else, determine success for an NHL franchise — ownership and leadership.
They transcend every other factor, including how large a market is or whether or not it has a traditional hockey fan base. There are teams that have struggled in the most fertile hockey markets in the world, while others have thrived with no traditional connection to the game.
So now it will be up to both Meruelo and Gutierrez to create an organization in the desert that has succeeded where so many others have failed. There is a lot of work to do.
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