The Arizona Coyotes rebuild won’t be easy
The start of the Coyotes 2022-2023 season looks brutal. To start the season, the Coyotes are on the road for 20 of the first 24 games. One of those road trips is a whopping 14 game away stint.
During these games, can the team learn how to win under that pressure? We have seen it with the Diamondbacks and Suns, and that turned around the season for them. We may see the team come together and start to trust each other. Adversity is something that teams rally around, and I believe this coaching staff will have them thinking about it.
But things have already started out rough for this team. The Coyotes just finished the preseason going winless through seven games. Five of those games were on the road, and four of their losses were by one goal. They didn’t look bad but didn’t look great, giving up three blowouts. We will have to chalk it up to Preseason. The team was checking out what they had in the AHL.
I’m worried that goalie Karel Vejmelka will come out hurt in some way. He has been on the IR early in the last two seasons and for long periods of time. The backup goalie, Connor Ingram, didn’t look good in preseason, but neither did the defense.
If the Coyotes stay healthy and start to embrace this adversity, they may be able to grow as a team. The odds are stacked against them, but if they meld with the help of the coaching staff they can surprise the NHL as a dark horse team. I still don’t think they will make the playoffs during this rebuild, but it can help them build a core to the team that they can build upon for the future.
This might speed up the rebuild.
