Size matters: Coyotes bet on big in identity-defining 2023 NHL Draft

NASHVILLE — Bill Armstrong has never disguised his desire for a bigger, stronger lineup. In his still-brief tenure as GM — and in spite of this ongoing rebuild —  he has transformed the Coyotes’ roster from one of the league’s smallest in stature to one of the league’s biggest. 

Per Elite Prospects, the Coyotes were the second tallest NHL team in average height and the seventh biggest in terms of average weight during the 2022-23 season.

Armstrong never delivered an outright edict to his scouts to add more size at the 2023 NHL Draft, but size is part of a prospect’s appeal to Armstrong. He believes the guts of the NHL game are a series of battles. Size may not be the only determining factor in those battles along the walls, in the corners, in front of the net, and for loose pucks, but size is often an advantage.

Armstrong watched the way that Vegas defended its way to a Stanley Cup with a big blue line and a suffocating structure. He helped construct bigger rosters in St. Louis, too. But he also understands this: Aside from the obvious need for skill, the modern game requires mobility where skating at least can’t be considered a detriment in a player’s game.

Those attributes almost formed an archetype of what the Coyotes drafted in two days in Tennessee. And the aftermath of the third legitimate draft under this scouting staff just may have balanced out the prospect pool in a manner conducive to complete roster building.

“Getting our defenseman right away and then getting a forward and then getting three goalies, I think going forward we feel like we’re even,” Coyotes director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski said. “We don’t feel like we have a hole at any position next year. We can draft any kid, any position and that’s the nice part. We didn’t get defensemen heavy. We didn’t get forward heavy. We’re not goaltender heavy. We’re just kind of at a nice even keel.”

The Coyotes have some smaller-in-stature skilled players that could be with the team for a while in Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Matias Maccelli, Sean Durzi and top prospect Logan Cooley. They have some size to balance it with Lawson Crouse, Christian Fischer and Jack McBain, but they added a whole lot more heft to a prospect pool that already includes Conor Geekie, Maveric Lamoureux and Maksymilian Szuber.

All 12 of Arizona’s draft picks this week stand 6 foot or taller, 11 of the 12 are 6-2 or taller, and six of the 12 are 6-4 or taller (graphic courtesy of Arizona Coyotes).

“We got a lot of size, but one thing we made sure was they’re all athletes,” Plandowski said. “We wanted athletes. We wanted guys who can skate.”

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“That’s always been Bill’s thing is to be big and if you look back at the St. Louis drafts, and even our drafts in Buffalo and Darryl’s drafts to some extent in Tampa, it was [about] getting some size and being big,” associate director of amateur scouting Ryan Jankowski added. “It did work out that way [for us]. It obviously speaks to what Vegas accomplished this year. You’ve got your Kellers and your Cooleys. You need to make sure you’ve got some support around them with some bigger players, too.”

The scouting and selection of Dmitri Simashev and Daniil But is a fascinating story that warrants further examination. Some of the 10 players whom the Coyotes chose on Day 2 of the draft will also warrant deeper stories at development camp and afterward, but the other major calling card for this Coyotes draft aside from the surprising choices and their overwhelming size was the Coyotes decision to shore up their goaltending pool.

Michael Hrabal was considered the top goaltending prospect by notable analysts such as Bob McKenzie and Chris Peters, but the Coyotes didn’t stop there. They also selected Swedish goalie Melker Thelin and the NTDP’s Carsen Musser.

“We didn’t take a goalie last year, and we knew this year was going to be a good goalie class,” Jankowski said. “Our goalie department [and scout Clay] Adams did an awesome job of making sure that we had every detail covered right from first round to seventh round. We could take a volume of goalies this year and that’s what you look to do when you have 12 picks.”

Overnight, the Coyotes goaltending prospect pool went from shallow — with only Ivan Prosvetov, Anson Thornton and Rasmus Korhonen in the pipeline — to one that is both deep in numbers and now boasts a highly rated prospect.

There are still holes in this pipeline to be sure. The Coyotes still don’t know if they have a top-pairing defenseman in their lineup, let alone a No. 1, but they are banking on Simashev at least being an excellent top-four option. They also don’t have the center depth that picking higher in this draft might have landed them. Aside from Cooley, the Coyotes still do not have another top-six center unless Barrett Hayton take another step next season.

But there is time to remedy that.

‘We’ve got picks the next couple years that are high picks, which is always exciting for the staff,” Plandowski said. “It allows you to stack players and see how they develop, but we have lots of good picks and lots of good prospects right now. We’ll just see over the next couple of years how they develop.”

Top photo of Darryl Plandowski, Dmitri Simashev and Ryan Jankowski via Getty Images

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