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There has been much dissection of former GM John Chayka’s decision to reward Clayton Keller with an eight-year, $57.2 million extension before the 2019-20 season. Analysts and executives across the league described the contract as anything from premature to an albatross.
Keller followed the signing with a 44-point season in 70 games (a 52-point pace) in his last season under his old contract. He had 35 points in 56 games last season (a 51-point pace); respectable numbers but not $7.15 million annual value kind of numbers.
Something clicked this summer for Keller, however. It was almost as if he had flipped an internal switch. He added seven pounds of lean muscle mass (in the previous five years since his draft year he had added a total of five) and he zeroed in on a list of in-game details that had been lacking in seasons past.
“Everyone trains in the summer, but I don’t think everyone trains with a purpose,” Keller said. “I really feel like I did that this offseason, whether it was eating more, eating right — doing everything I can because it’s a long offseason and you really have to take care of your body. I think it was just a good combination of that and skating a lot, working on things that I wanted to work on.”
Keller’s agent, Scott Bartlett thinks it was just a matter of growing up.
“I think sometimes it just takes time, genetically, emotionally, maturity-wise,” Bartlett said. “I don’t feel like there was any super secret sauce this summer where all of a sudden he worked a lot harder. He’s always been pretty dedicated. I think it’s just his body getting to the point where he’s becoming a man.
“To be frank with you, the first couple of years in the league, he was playing as a boy. He was getting away with his talent and his hockey sense but those man muscles of balance and stability? There were moments where it wasn’t there, especially when he was getting fatigued. When you start to hit that point in your life where you can keep the weight on, it changes things.”
That is certainly a major factor in Keller’s progression, and you could see it on a shorthanded goal that he scored in Friday’s 4-3 shootout loss at Colorado. Keller didn’t just hold off a defenseman with his strength, he held off Devon Toews, who could be among the top 10 vote getters for the Norris Trophy this season.
But it’s not just Keller’s offensive abilities that are gaining attention this season. A play against the Winnipeg Jets on Jan. 4 highlights Keller’s improved play away from the puck. While it was his initial mistake that led to a Nik Ehlers scoring chance (he didn’t cover for a pinching defenseman), players will make mistakes in a game. Keller more than made up for it.
“He’s really interesting that way because I always felt watching him grow up that he had this way about him where he could strip pucks,” GM Bill Armstrong said. “I think his biggest strength away from the puck is to be able to find the battle and not even use his body and kind of strip pucks and just work on the backcheck. It almost creates more offense for him because he strips pucks, and I think he’s been a little bit more in tune with a little bit more effort.”
Armstrong has more history with Keller, 23, than he has with most of the Coyotes. Keller grew up outside of St. Louis and played in the city’s youth organizations. Armstrong spent the first 17 years of his NHL career as a scout and executive with the Blues. He has literally known about Keller since he was a kid.
“He’s the same age as my son (BU defenseman Jamie Armstrong) so I kind of caught glimpses of him as he’s grown up the whole time, and seen what he can do,” Armstrong said.
When Armstrong arrived in Arizona in September 2020, he saw a player with much more to give. Armstrong still feels that way, but when Keller was named an All-Star on Thursday, Armstrong had a wholly remade take on his highest paid player.
“I think there’s a bigger picture now,” Armstrong said. “I think we see him as part of our team when we’re a championship team. We see him as being a part of that and being a driving force.
“He’s cleaned up his game so that he can play in almost every situation, which allows you to play a ton of minutes. That’s where he has an effect because he has the puck the whole time.”
Most of the credit for that has to go to Keller. He put in the work, but it’s impossible to overlook the impact that coach André Tourigny has had on him. Keller is averaging a career-high 19:58 of ice time and that is because he is playing in all situations. He has already logged 35.5 minutes of penalty-kill time, he is playing late in games when the Coyotes are protecting leads, and Tourigny has bestowed the A upon him as an alternate captain.
“The reason why he has an A on his jersey is because of the way he behaved before,” Tourigny said. “You don’t give something to the player. You just react to what’s going on. Clayton Keller showed leadership, compassion, competitiveness, and character every day. He earned it. It’s not me who gave it to him. He earned it.
“When the guy is a leader everybody knows he’s a leader. The fans know he’s a leader, the owner knows he’s a leader, the GM knows he’s a leader, the coach knows, his teammates know. Everybody knows what Keller is doing in our world.”
Many of the Coyotes who remained after this summer’s player and coaching purge talked about the opportunity for a fresh start under Tourigny. There are no exact stats on shelf life for coaches in the NHL (they seem much shorter than previously), but Keller appears to be benefitting from a new voice.
“I think I bought in right away and I was kind of all ears,” Keller said of Tourigny. “He’s a very smart guy, a great hockey coach, and we’ve developed a really good relationship. He’s just been super fun to play for. He wants us to win and he really does care about us and has our backs. It’s been awesome to play for him and hopefully we continue that for many more years down the road.”
This is Keller’s second All-Star selection, but it is probably the first time that his play has genuinely warranted that honor. In 35 games, he has 13 goals and 27 points, but over the past two months he has exhibited the sort of consistency that players must exhibit to be considered elite.
After registering just six points in his first 16 games, Keller has 21 points in his past 19, and it is fair to wonder, given his recent play, how close he would be to a point-per-game player if the Coyotes center depth were better than it is.
“It’s a man’s league,” Armstrong said. “You can’t go in there with a boy’s body and think that you’re going to be able to drive offense. You’ve got to be able to hold off people. That’s the biggest difference in his game. He just holds off people when he has the puck.
“He’s added a spark of energy but I still think there’s more. He has showed flashes where you notice him as a fan because he’s got the puck the whole time. He goes through these small periods of time in the game where he mini-dominates. I think there’s some more room where he can grow and that’s why I like his approach because he has spent time with coach to improve his game every single day. Every single day.”
Here is a list of Coyotes’ previous All-Star representatives:
1997: Oleg Tverdovsky, Keith Tkachuk
1998: Keith Tkachuk, Nikolai Khabibulin
1999: Jeremy Roenick, Keith Tkachuk, Nikolai Khabibulin, Teppo Numminen, Coach Jim Schoenfeld
2000: Jeremy Roenick, Teppo Numminen
2001: Sean Burke, Teppo Numminen
2002: Sean Burke
2004: Shane Doan
2007: Yanic Perreault, Ed Jovanovski
2008: Ed Jovanovski
2009: Shane Doan
2011: Keith Yandle
2012: Keith Yandle
2015: Oliver Ekman-Larsson
2017: Mike Smith
2018: Oliver Ekman-Larsson
2019: Clayton Keller
2020: Darcy Kuemper, Coach Rick Tocchet
A group of fans is mobilizing to voice their support for the Coyotes’ proposed Tempe arena. Through a combination of emails and letters to Tempe City Council members, community outreach, an online petition and more, organizers hope to make it clear to the City of Tempe that there is widespread support for the project, and that Coyotes fans will turn out en masse once the project is complete to attend games and spend their money at the sprawling entertainment district on the south bank of Rio Salado.
“There’s so many of us fans that are just so passionate about the Coyotes and for me, this is my outlet from work,“ said Melissa Brown, one of seven administrators on the Arizona Coyotes Fans Facebook page, which counts nearly 6,000 members. “I don’t know what I would do without hockey and the Coyotes.”
Brown observed Thursday’s city council meeting to get the lay of the land and is scheduled as a speaker at the Feb. 10 meeting. Simultaneously, the group is working with other fans to organize visits to local rinks including Tempe’s Oceanside Ice Arena to drum up support. They have also organized an email campaign and a social media blast.
“We don’t know how much time we have before the city council votes on this,” she said. “We don’t know if we have a couple of weeks, if we have a month, we have no idea, but we know that we have to have a plan in place and we need to get going on it.”
Brown and fellow site administrator Tyler Meisterheim have reached out to Coyotes fans Bea Wyatt and George Fallar for guidance on best practices. Fallar and Wyatt played a vital role in organizing fan support while the Coyotes were negotiating with Glendale on an arena-lease agreement in 2013, and the couple has been active in efforts to grow the game in the Valley.
“They don’t have to be Coyotes fans,” Wyatt said of fans who may want to show their support for the proposal. “They can be hockey fans who want their team to come to town or they can be concert fans who will go to that venue.”
“Anything that we do with fan participation in this is going to answer the question: ‘Will people come and support it?'” Fallar added. “By the time they get close to voting, I think there’s enough activity now that they’ll be convinced that X number of people will come X times every year; forever. At this point, that’s really all we can do.”
Cameron Siciliano, a huge Clayton Keller fan (and by extension, a Coyotes fan), has also organized an online petition that more than 1,200 people had signed as of Friday evening.
“I’ve gotten a lot of comments and they have been very positive,” she said. “Honestly, it’s just kind of shocking to me how it has taken off.”
The Tempe City Council expects to receive an economic benefit assessment from the Coyotes this month which will shed more light and detail on the proposed arena and entertainment district. The council expects to further debate a number of topics including: traffic impact, airport issues, Glendale’s experience with the Coyotes, the best use of the land, sports betting, and competition with other Valley entertainment complexes.
For more information on Tempe City Council meetings, follow this link.
The Coyotes have not announced where they will play games in the interim while they await word on the Tempe proposal, but NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said that the league is not opposed to the idea of the Coyotes playing in a smaller venue.
“While we have arena standards, we would approach the entire situation in a way intended to accommodate the club’s needs in effectuating a successful transition to a new venue,” Daly wrote in an email. “While there may very well be some, I can’t think of any hard and fast rules that couldn’t be relaxed to accommodate what is necessary.”
When I asked Daly specifically if the league would approve the Coyotes playing in an arena with a seating capacity as low as 5,000, he said it “depends on the totality of circumstances, but I wouldn’t rule it out.”
It’s still unclear how the NHLPA would feel about the same decision, but the league and the NHLPA have begun discussions regarding the Coyotes’ plans for next season. There are issues with team-space requirements, revenue sharing and more that the PA will need to understand.
“The Coyotes’ anticipated move in 2022-23 from Gila River Arena in Glendale to a temporary Arizona venue raises a number of matters that the league and the NHLPA will need to work through,” a spokesperson for the NHLPA said. “Ideally, these matters will be sorted out well in advance of next season.”
Coyotes top goaltending prospect Ivan Prosvetov has made five NHL appearances in his short pro career. Three of them have come against the high-scoring Colorado Avalanche, one came against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning, and one came against the Cup-contending Vegas Golden Knights. All of them have come on the road.
“Definitely waiting to get some games in our building with our fans,” Prosvetov quipped after stopping 44 of 47 shots (plus Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen in the shootout) in a 4-3 loss at Colorado on Friday. “I definitely had some games here against good opponents and you definitely get more confidence with age, right? With the more games you play, you get more comfortable there. In the second period, I feel like I was already already playing my game like I always do in the AHL.”
The opponents clearly had a lot to do with it, but Prosvetov hadn’t turned in a strong NHL performance before Friday’s game. It was an encouraging sign to see him step up in a difficult environment.
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