Coyotes free agency preview: Who will be back? Who won't? How will Bill Armstrong fill out roster?

Minutes after the NHL Draft ended in Nashville on Thursday, Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong was on his way back to Arizona aboard Alex Meruelo’s private jet.

This was no flight to be fancy, however. Armstrong had little time to acclimate to Arizona’s summer heat before he had to step back into the fire himself.

The timing of this year’s draft left NHL GMs with a one-day window between the end of the draft and the start of free agency at 9 a.m. on Saturday. That meant that Armstrong was bouncing between amateur scouting meetings and pro scouting meetings in Nashville.

“One room was trying to trade the picks and one room was trying to draft players with the picks,” he quipped.

With eight restricted free agents still in limbo — five with arbitration rights — the cost-conscious Coyotes had to make some hard and quick decisions before Friday’s 2 p.m. deadline to send qualifying offers. They tendered offers to forwards Jack McBain (arbitration rights), Matias Maccelli, Jan Jeník, Nathan Smith (arbitration rights) and goalie Ivan Provestov (arbitration rights),

They did not tender offers to defenseman Cam Crotty (arbitration rights), whom they later signed to a one-year contract, and goalie David Tendeck, whose tenuous place with the franchise ended when the team drafted three goaltenders on Thursday.

The biggest surprise of the day was the decision not to tender an offer to heart-and-soul forward Christian Fischer. The team’s 2015 second-round pick (No. 32) has played six-plus seasons in the Valley and was looking for a deal with some term.  Fischer also had arbitration rights and in his particular case, coming off a 13-goal season, the Coyotes were nervous about where that might lead.

The Coyotes will still try to sign Fischer as an unrestricted free agent but given the instability of this franchise for his entire tenure, the unsuccessful Tempe arena vote, some unproductive contract negotiations and some yeoman’s work for this franchise off the ice that was never fully appreciated, it would be a surprise to see Fischer sign another contract in Arizona rather than pursue a fresh start elsewhere. The consummate teammate and a media favorite, Fischer could add a lot to a team’s bottom six as a defensive forward and penalty killer who can chip in with some offense. 

If Fischer does depart, it will add to the work that Armstrong must complete this summer. The Coyotes have just 33 of the maximum 50 contract slots filled between the NHL and AHL. When free agency begins on Saturday, Armstrong won’t have the luxury of silly spending, but there is plenty of roster building ahead.

“Our approach in free agency is to make our team better for tomorrow, but not worse in three to four years,” he said. “We don’t want the deals that we do today to take away from deals that we could be doing when we’re really good so there’s some short-term deals to be had.”

The 2023 free agency class is considered weak, but Armstrong will be looking for specific types of player to fill out his roster, whether that means existing NHL players or free agents in Europe.

“I don’t think we’re going to be shopping in the Gucci or the Prada aisles,” he said. “But we’ll definitely be working to make sure that we can find good value on players. We found great value in Nick Bjugstad last year and he helped us move forward. We’re gonna look for players that we can target that will help us move forward.”

The NHL announced this week that the salary cap upper limit will be $83.5 million while the lower limit will be $61.7 million. The Coyotes currently sit at $55.25 million, per Cap Friendly, with more than $23 million dedicated to players who are not playing (Shea Weber, Jakub Voráček, Bryan Little, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Zack Kassian, Patrik Nemeth).

Again, Arizona will be on a tight budget this season as the search for a new arena continues, but free agency may not be the only method to build out this roster. The Coyotes already added defenseman Sean Durzi in a trade with Los Angeles by cashing in one of their many draft assets (this one a 2024 second-round pick). Armstrong said that more trades could be on the horizon. Some of those may be a product of other teams signing players and then needing to move salaries out. 

The Coyotes could even add players via waivers as they did with Jusso Välimäki and Connor Ingram last season. While the Coyotes aren’t likely to take on any more bad contracts, adding players in the Bjugstad vein could allow them to flip more players for assets at the trade deadline.

Whatever moves the Coyotes make via free agency, trades or waivers, those processes could stretch well into the summer.

“You can be patient,” Armstrong said. “There’s guys out there that will come available that you’re gonna want to talk to and figure out if they’re the right fit.”

Two guys who don’t appear to fit into the Coyotes’ future are unrestricted free agent forward Brett Ritchie and UFA defenseman Connor Mackey. The Coyotes are not expected to re-sign either player.

With so many roster slots still open, it’s too early to speculate on forward lines and defense pairs, but here’s an educated guess on which current players are likely to be on the opening-day NHL roster, and which have a shot at joining the mix.

Centers
Locks: Barrett Hayton, Jack McBain, Travis Boyd
Possibilities: Nathan Smith

Wings
Locks: Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Lawson Crouse, Matias Maccelli, Dylan Guenther, Michael Carcone, Liam O’Brien
Possibilities: Jan Jeník

Defensemen
Locks: Juuso Välimäki, JJ Moser, Sean Durzi, Josh Brown
Possibilities: Vladislav Kolyachonok, Michael Kesselring, Victor Söderström 

Goalies
Locks: Karel Vejmelka, Connor Ingram

Top photo of Christian Fischer via Getty Images

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