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Josh Doan's stunning Coyotes debut was a fairy tale built on character, determination
It took Josh Doan 45 minutes to reach his postgame interview in the bowels of Mullett Arena. If you know the Doan family history, you know this was right on brand.
One minute into the interview, nobody cared about the delay. Doan deserved every second of the time he took on the Scripps Sports set with his dad, his family and host Todd Walsh. He deserved to weave his way slowly through the receiving line of family members, Roadrunners teammates, ASU teammates, boyhood friends and staff members there to congratulate him.
He deserved to soak in every drop of the one and only NHL debut he will ever make. He had just scored two goals, including the game-winner, and he could have had more in a 6-2 Coyotes victory before a delirious crowd in Tempe.
When he finally settled in front of the cameras and recorders to begin his interview, he instantly disarmed the throng of reporters gathered there by lowering his head, donning that sheepish Doan tone and humbly offering: “Apologies.”
There was nothing for which to apologize. In a mundane Tuesday night matchup against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Doan somehow reminded the Valley’s hockey fans why they fell in love with this team so long ago. He reminded everyone what it felt like to feel good about the Coyotes again after so much bad news and so many bad performances in recent seasons.
Is it any surprise that it took a Doan to fan the flames of hope?
“It was tough to not feel that in this arena tonight,” coach André Tourigny said. “It’s a little bit of a fairytale. He scored two goals, scored the winning goal, played really well, had chances. I think that’s the way life should be. That’s beautiful.”
It was a moment long in the making.
Devil of a start
Greg Powers knew who Doan was when the two arrived at USA Hockey’s 2019 Rocky Mountain District tryouts in Dallas. It’s impossible to run in hockey circles in the Phoenix area and not know the Doan name. It’s the most royal hockey bloodline in the Valley.
Doan had just completed his final season with the Jr. Coyotes. He was headed for a development year with the USHL’s Chicago Steel where he was likely to sit out most games. Powers had just coached ASU to its first NCAA Tournament in the program’s fourth year at Division I. He wanted to take the next step by dipping into the pool of the nation’s most elite players.
A series of fortuitous events conspired in his favor that weekend in Texas.
“Nobody really knew about him at the college level yet,” Powers said of Doan, who didn’t hit his growth spurt until his late teens. “By literal luck of the draw, I got put on his birth year and he got put on my team for the entire weekend at Rocky Mountains.
“I already knew he was a good U16 player, but by the end of the weekend I thought he was unbelievable. The way he interacted with me, the way he interacted with his teammates, how effective he was on the ice, his brain — everything about him was so impressive. I couldn’t get back to Arizona fast enough and get in his living room.”
Powers got back so fast for his recruiting pitch that he beat Josh and his mom, Andrea, to the Doan residence. Instead, he was greeted by the most famous Doan. Powers knew Shane a little, but not well enough to expect what came next.
“Shane opens the door with this big smile, invites me in and he’s like, ‘You hungry?'” Powers said, laughing. “He’s pouring all these chips in bowls. I think they were Doritos. He’s the nicest, friendliest guy you could ever meet. So I’m sitting there shooting the breeze with Shane Doan and I’m like, ‘Holy crap, what is going on here?'”
Doan dismissed the notion of his overwhelming hospitality with a joke.
“I’m usually hungry,” he said. “That’s why I asked if he wanted to eat so I would have an excuse.”
Shane was leaning toward the junior route for Josh. That’s the route he took (with the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers) as a Western Canadian kid. It was the route with which he was the most familiar. But Shane and Andrea raised their kids to be independent thinkers.
“There’s probably four or five times in his career when he’s made a decision where we’ve disagreed and said, ‘Maybe you should try this instead,'” Shane said.
“We didn’t know if going to Chicago was the right idea. We thought he should stay and play U18 or maybe go to Wenatchee. We weren’t sure if he should make a decision on school yet, but he was like, ‘No, I’m going to ASU. This is where I want to be. This is home. I love it.’ And then we thought maybe he should stick around for one more year of college, but he said. ‘No, I need to go to the AHL and learn and be taught by veteran players like Adam Cracknell.
“His mom and I had good discussions with him, but it was never in a confrontational way. We encouraged him to make his own decisions and every time, by God’s providence, it has worked and he’s done well.”
Josh’s decision to become a Sun Devil made his NHL debut all the more meaningful. Amid a litany of other tantalizing storylines, he became the first player to play for ASU, the Tucson Roadrunners and the Coyotes. That he is also the first Arizona born-and-raised kid to play for the Coyotes, and that he hails from the biggest hockey name in the state’s history, made it all the more impactful in the hours before the game.
“A lot of things are going through my head,” Josh said as he drove from Tucson to the Valley on Monday night, hours after the Roadrunners had returned from a two-game series in San José.
“In particular, I have talked to a lot of family and friends in the last 24 hours about just enjoying the moment. It’s a unique experience to not only make your NHL debut, but to play on the team that you’ve always dreamed of playing for; the organization that you followed since you were a baby. It’s all kind of hitting you at once and you don’t know how to comprehend it all.”
The moment didn’t even seem real until Doan took his rookie lap in the building he helped open by scoring the first goal in its history in a 2-0 win against Colgate on Oct. 14, 2022.
An opportunity earned
It was hard to dismiss the idea that Doan’s debut was a welcome distraction. The Coyotes entered play against the Jackets with the NHL’s fifth-worst record, and when Vegas earned a point earlier in the night, the Coyotes were officially eliminated from the playoff picture for the 11th time in the past 12 seasons.
On the business side, the Arizona State Land Department still has not posted the long-awaited land auction that may decide the franchise’s Arizona fate.
But this was more than a marketing diversion. GM Bill Armstrong has been saying for weeks that Doan would get a look this season for one simple reason. He earned it. It’s the same argument Armstrong cited when he made Doan a second-round pick (No. 37) in 2021 — a move that raised eyebrows in the scouting community.
Armstrong was still the St. Louis Blues’ director of amateur scouting in 2016 when his son, Jamie, was draft-eligible out of Avon Old Farms prep school. The Blues owned the very last selection in that draft; a seventh-round pick that was 211th overall. Armstrong didn’t pick his son.
“Looking back at all the guys that influenced the draft to get their son taken, it just held them back in life. It never really forwarded the kid in any way, shape or form, hockey-wise,” Armstrong said. “My belief was never to do favors because I don’t think it really does anything for the particular player. Picking Josh was not a favor. We felt he was worth the pick.
“I love players that come through the American League when they’re home-grown. I believe when you do that, they fight harder. And when I look down there in Tucson and see Josh’s name every night as one of our top players, not only analytics-wise, but also by the words of the coaches, I knew at some point in time we were going to take a look at him and now is that time.”
Doan leads the Roadrunners in goals (26) and points (46) in 62 games. The former stat ranks first among AHL rookies; the latter ranks third. He has worked on his stride so much with skating coach Lars Hepso that it is no longer considered a weakness. He has built out his frame to the point where Roadrunners coach Steve Potvin says, “He doesn’t lose battles.” He has also taken on a leadership role at the ripe age of 22.
While some questioned Doan’s readiness to leave ASU after his sophomore year, his transition to pro hockey has largely been seamless and successful.
“Put it this way,” Potvin said. “The game kept asking him questions, and he just kept answering. He’s the most consistent player that we’ve had.
“Eventually, you wear out your welcome in the American League and you move on. That’s literally what he’s done.”
Doan’s special night
Doan’s parents and siblings, Gracie, Karys and Carson were in attendance to catch his NHL debut, along with Shane’s sister, his sister-in-law, her husband and their kids. When Josh scored his first goal, the reaction from the family was priceless, with Shane hugging Gracie and then Andrea while the aforementioned uncle ripped off his shirt.
“I don’t think any parent ever really thinks their kid is going to play in the NHL,” Shane said. “You just want your kids to keep enjoying it and get better and not really focus too much on where they’re at. But to know that his dream and his goal has always been to get an opportunity to play in the NHL, it’s emotional to watch it happen for sure.”
There is no telling how long Doan’s stay with the Coyotes will last. Armstrong said it will be a game-to-game evaluation. Whether he stays for all 10 remaining games — he will if he keeps playing like this — or just a stretch, Doan wants to be back in Tucson for the postseason.
“That is definitely something I want to be a part of and I’m not going to miss it,” he said. “Those are the guys that I’ve been with all year and we’ve grown together. I want to be there when we go into the playoffs and then in the summer time, I’ll just work on the things that I need to work on; the things they tell me I need to get better at to have a little bit more success.”
There have been moments since the announcement of Josh’s recall where Shane found himself waxing nostalgic about childhood memories. There were times at Gila River Arena while Shane was still playing when Josh and good bud Matthew Knies would wait for the dressing room to clear out so they could play mini-sticks. And there were the challenges that Josh faced throughout his Jr. Coyotes career because he was small; the Doan genes hadn’t yet taken over.
“I remember a time in Kamloops after a blue-and-white game that he was pretty upset,” Shane said. “He could see what he needed to do, but he couldn’t do it because he hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet and the other kids were just so much bigger and stronger and faster then. It was really frustrating for him.
“But what adversity does is it gives you problems to solve. And then if you figure out how to solve that problem, when the next problem comes along, you’re able to solve it because you’ve realized that you’re capable of it. I think that’s probably one of Josh’s strengths. He’s gained confidence every time because he’s figured out ways to solve the problems and solve the equations thrown at him and then he moves on, he gets smarter, he understands the game more, and it helps him more and more.”
(Photo courtesy of Arizona Coyotes)
One game does not an NHL star make and Josh certainly knows this. If he doesn’t, there is an experienced guide there to remind him.
“I think his dad will be there to keep him humble,” Tourigny said. “But I don’t want it to be a downer for him tonight. I think he should enjoy it because that’s the last time he will play his first game in the NHL. He should enjoy it fully, embrace it, be really happy about it and then at midnight, that’s what [it means to be a] pro. We move on and we’re on for the next challenge.”
Doan seemed to understand this approach completely. When asked about his performance, he said, “That was something special. Right from the beginning, all the guys made it so unique.”
But when asked what he would do for an encore on Thursday against the Nashville Predators, Doan flashed a a serious game face and a well-worn hockey cliché.
“Work hard, get pucks in deep.”
Top photo via Danielle Cortez, PHNX Sports
PHNX Sports producer/photographer Danielle Cortez shot Tuesday’s game and provided this collections of photos, chronicling Josh Doan’s NHL debut for the Coyotes.
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