Don't Give Gretzky Credit

So there has been talk about how the Phoenix Coyotes have improvement this year is due to the coaching of Wayne Gretzky. I am telling you right now: don’t even think of giving this man the credit.

You can say Gretzky has improved as a coach, that may be true, but that is not what has made the Yotes a better team this year. The main culprit in that is goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov. Bryzgalov is a number one goalie who Anaheim tried to trade but could find no takers because everyone knew they would be trading him. Not able to even get a late round pick for him, Anaheim GM Brian Burke placed him on waivers where he was picked up by the Coyotes. This is how waivers work in the NHL. Each team can put in a claim to the player on waivers. The team with the worst record who puts in the claim gets the player. The Coyotes were the 4th worst team in the league at that time, and so were able to acquire him for nothing. But they had to be bad at that point to begin with. Since that time the Coyotes have been a legitimate team.

Let me give you some back history on the Coyotes. Nikolai Khabibulin, current goalie in Chicago who helped Tampa Bay win a cup in 2004 was the last legitimate starting goaltender the Yotes had and they dealt him at the trade deadline his final season there. The year: 2001. Since then the Coyotes have fielded journeymen, busts and end of their career guys such as Sean Burke, Curtis Joseph, Brian Boucher and David Leneveau just as some examples of those. That’s seven years (about 5 seasons due to the lockout and being dealt at the deadline) that the team has gone without a legitimate starter. And anyone who knows even a little bit of hockey knows that you cannot win without a goalie, period. This is why the Yotes have been toiling at the bottom of the standings since that time.

So now after Bryzgalov is acquired the Coyotes are now in a race to make the final playoff spot. But yet some people aren’t putting two and two together here. All of a sudden you have a starting goalie in your ranks for the first time in years and you attribute the jump in the standings and play to the coach? Hmm…

Also, the Coyotes did the smartest thing they could do at the end of last season: fire GM Mike Barnett. In my last article I blasted GM’s Jay Feaster and Don Waddell as the two worst GM’s in the league. Barnett was worse than either of them. His solution was to bring in over priced veterans who were a year from retirement to fill in the gaps. Plus every off season and deadline he was very active, “overhauling” his roster to make it better. So really twice a year the team had significant changes. Unfortunately real life hockey doesn’t work like the video games and Barnett was unable to realize that.

So with Barnett gone new GM Don Maloney did little in the off season choosing to leave spaced open for young players. His only notable acquisition was Radim Vrbata from Chicago who has been a pleasant surprise netting 27 goals after a previous career high of 15. This was a smart move as the younger players are now starting to come into their own and will only get better.

So where exactly does Gretzky fit in with the success? Nowhere. Bryzgalov is the majority why the Coyotes have improves so much this year, and getting rid of an awful GM the next. Gretzky’s positive impact, if any, is negligible.