Phoenix Coyotes Hockey on AZ Vibe

The Phoenix Coyotes have announced today that they have signed Left Wing Scott Upshall and Goaltender Josh Tordjman to one year contracts.

“We are excited to have signed Scottie Upshall to a new contract,” said Coyotes GM Don Maloney in a statement released by the team. “He performed exceptionally well for us last season after we acquired him from Philadelphia and we expect him to be an important player for us next season.”

We will post terms when they become available.

Early reports are coming out from the NHL Board of Governor’s meeting that the Jerry Reinsdorf bid to purchase the Coyotes was unanimously approved.  Blackberry co-CEO Jim Ballsille’s bid to purchase the Coyotes was unanimously denied.  The controversial ‘Ice Edge’ group’s bid was deemed incomplete.

UPDATE – 2:30PM AZ Time

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman just released the following statement at the conclusion of today’s Board of Governors meeting:

“The National Hockey League’s Board of Governors met this afternoon to review the ownership applications of three prospective ownership groups for the Phoenix Coyotes. The Board’s process today represents the League’s best efforts to comply with the League’s review procedures pursuant to NHL Constitution Article 3.5 and NHL By-Law 35 within the timetable imposed by the ongoing court process.

“There were three applicant groups that were interviewed by the Executive Committee and considered by the Board. One was Jim Balsillie’s. The second was a group headed by Anthony LeBlanc, involving Mr. LeBlanc, Keith McCullough, Todd Jordan and Daryl Jones. And the third group, headed by Jerry Reinsdorf, included as well Tony Tavares and John Kaites.

“After interviewing all of the applications, the Executive Committee brought forward recommendations to the full Board of Governors.

“Mr. Reinsdorf’s application was unanimously approved by all those Board members present and voting, subject to the League’s completion of its due diligence and review of the final transaction. In Mr. Balsillie’s case, it was the unanimous vote of all members present and voting that his application not be approved. With respect to the LeBlanc group, it was determined that, at this stage, since they’ve only recently begun the process, the application was incomplete and could not yet be acted on by the Board. However, the Executive Committee reported favorably on the LeBlanc group’s interview and endorsed the group’s continued efforts to complete a bid to purchase the franchise.

“We will so advise the Bankruptcy Court and we will move this process forward.”

Well, here’s what we got so far for the week (catching up from a mini-vacation).

- Rumors all over the internet are saying that free agent Left Wing Alex Tanguay has signed a contract with the Phoenix Coyotes.  Again this is just a rumor so we’re not reading much into it at the moment.

- Phoenix Coyotes Left Winger Daniel Winnik, was awarded a one year contract in arbitration this past Friday, according to NHL salary cap sites, for $600,000.  Winnik will be a Restricted Free Agent at the end of next year.

- As you may or may have not heard by now, former Phoenix Coyotes Defenseman Derek Morris has signed a one year, $3.3 million Dollar contract with the Boston Bruins.

- From the ‘Big D Hockey’ Blog comes word that the Phoenix Coyotes have invited Justin Bowers to Rookie Camp (takes place September 5th – 10th).  Bowers played for the ECHL Dayton Bombers averaging around a point a game.

After reading today’s article from the Globe and Mail regarding the controversial Ice Edge proposal of playing Coyotes home games in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (Canada), I got to thinking.  (I do that sometimes.)

What is stopping the Phoenix Coyotes from creating a fan (opposing teams) travel division within the team?

These packages would be for fans of opposing teams that are playing the Coyotes this season who can’t see games in their own city because it’s too expensive, they are not able to purchase tickets due to overwhelming demand, or they just want to have an excuse to get some sun during the winter.

This is a business and the business is putting butts in seats is it not?

Right now the business model of putting fans from the Phoenix area in the seats of Jobing.com arena is not working too well.  This is mainly due to the quality of  the product on the ice.  That will change very soon.  In the mean time, why not put a temporary focus on putting fans from opposing teams in the seats of the Job?  I don’t know how many times I’ve run into fans from places like Vancouver or Edmonton who have made dedicated trips to Phoenix to see their teams because of the reasons I outlined above.  Throw in a golf or spa package or, if the time of the year is right, Spring Training Tickets and you would have a great potential source of income.

This probably wouldn’t be a gold mine for the Coyotes, but it is an untapped market.

We’re starting a new column/topic on this site called ‘Why Hockey Works in Phoenix’. These posts will be dedicated to showing people why hockey, outside what the Phoenix Coyotes are doing in the NHL on a game by game basis, is indeed working in Phoenix and in Arizona.

The first item comes from the Coyotes website and their free programs for youth to get interested in hockey.

I’m assuming this was recorded sometime today but it’s a pretty standard interview following a trade:

http://coyotes.nhl.com/club/podcastplayer.htm?pid=335&iid=14889&navid=DL

Mark your calendars, the ASU Hockey team has released their Division 1 and Division 2 Schedules for the 2009/2010 season.

Please note that all ASU Division 1 and Division 2 home games will now be held at Oceanside Ice Arena in Tempe.

Division 1 Schedule:

http://www.sundevilhockey.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13&Itemid=18

Division 2 Schedule:

http://www.sundevilhockey.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14&Itemid=19

Finally, Mark your calendars for the ASU Division 1 and Division 2 hockey Conditioning Camp and Team tryout dates:

http://www.sundevilhockey.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=41:sun-devil-hockey-announces-conditioning-camptry-out-dates&catid=7:program-news&Itemid=9

The Phoenix Coyotes announced Tuesday that they have acquired former Phoenix Coyote Radim Vrbata from the Tampa Bay Lightning for left wing Todd Fedoruk and defenseman David Hale.

“We are very excited to bring Radim Vrbata back to Phoenix,” said Coyotes GM Don Maloney in a statement released by the team.  “He had a career year for us in 2007-08 and is a talented forward who can help us offensively next season.”

As many of the other Coyotes fans and Coyotes bloggers around town are rejoicing in Vrbata’s return, I do not share their enthusiasm.  I’m not against the trade at all.  I just can’t stop thinking about the disappearing act Vrbata did in the 2007-2008 season when the Coyotes were making a serious push for the playoffs.   In the last 17 games of the 2007-2008 season he managed to put up only 5 points. I watched many of those games in which he was completely and utterly invisible on the ice.

When he signed a monstrous contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2008-2009 season (a three year, nine million dollar contract) he managed to put up only 3 goals in 18 games before heading back to the Czech Republic.

In a blog post by Tampa Bay Lightning beat writer Damian Cristodero writes that the reason Vrbata went back to the Czech republic was to help his wife out with her pregnancy.  Ok, that’s completely understandable.  However, does this explain his disappearing act with the Coyotes in the 2007-2008 season’s playoff push? 

This question has not been answered to this day.

In the offseason, Vrbata’s agent, Rich Evans, was allowed to talk to other teams when Lightning GM Brian Lawton said that Vrbata would not be in their plans for the upcoming season.

Cristodero also noted that Vrbata’s agent said that “he always was zeroed in on Phoenix, a team with which Vrbata was comfortable and which (Vrbata’s Agent Rich) Evans said (Phoenix) wants to bring in more veteran guys who had success playing with younger players.”

Understandable. Vrbata fits into this mold…on paper.

So what’s my main problem with this trade?

James Myrtle of the Globe and Mail put it best:  “Vrbata’s biggest problem isn’t that he’s not a useful player — it’s that he’s guaranteed way too much money.”

I sincerely hope Vrbata can be in a position to succeed for the Coyotes next season.  He’s got the skills and talent to do be a threat whenever he’s on the ice.  However, his mental toughness, discipline along with the ability to raise his game to another level  has yet to be seen and is a HUGE question mark going into the coming season.

Vrbata has yet to prove that he can not only be a contributing factor on the ice when his team needs him and not pull a Markus Naslund-esque disappearing act on the ice moving forward.   Vrbata also needs to prove that he deserves to be paid $3 million dollars a year.

In Saturday’s edition of the Globe and Mail a new group of young American and Canadian investors plan to submit a bid by next week to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes.  The article implies that the offer will be made to keep the team in the Phoenix area.  They also plan to have Wayne Gretzky be the ‘cornerstone’ of their plan.

The Coyotes announced today that they have re-signed defenseman Keith Yandle to a two year $2.4 million dollar contract. According to St. Louis Blues beat writer Andy Strickland, he will make $1.1 million dollars this year and $1.3 million dollars the 2010-2011 season.

“We are very pleased to have signed Keith Yandle to a new contract,” said Coyotes GM Don Maloney in a statement released today. “He is a young and talented offensive-minded defenseman who will continue to play a major role on our team.”

Last year Yandle scored 4 goals, 26 assists, and 37 penalty minutes in 69 games last season with the Coyotes. These numbers were all career highs for Yandle and his 30 points last season ranked second on the coyotes among defensemen.