Will we say the same thing about the Coyotes at the end of the season? One thing is for certain: This team has a cohesiveness from the top down that is unique, a cohesiveness reflected in the long hours logged by the coaching staff and the impromptu after-work gatherings and barbecues, elements that suggest a team that is pulling on the same rope.
So, we'll tell this story, the story of the Cinder-dogs from Phoenix,
ahead of time.
It is the story every team imagines itself writing.
It's a story that starts with the greatest player of all time, Wayne Gretzky, and his good friend and general manager Mike Barnett, sitting back after last season's disappointing 38-39-5 record that left the Coyotes 12th in the Western Conference and finding many things wanting.
They didn't sit around for long. They got up and went to the western edge of Toronto, and on the first day of free agency knocked on Ed Jovanovski's agent's door and told Don Meehan a similar story that we're telling now, about a team that was ready to make a difference.
Jovanovski believed that story and signed a five-year, $32.5 million deal. Jovanovski represents the perfect blend of snarl and savvy for a team that lacked both, a player who can dish it out at both ends of the ice.
"There were nights where I felt that maybe we got physically outmatched, and not because guys weren't trying to be as physical as possible," Gretzky said during training camp. "But we weren't quite as strong as some of the other teams. And there were liberties taken at times that I wasn't very pleased with as a team. So we went out and we addressed that. We're a much stronger, much more physical hockey club and we're going to play that way."
Gretzky and Barnett weren't done. The offensively starved Coyotes liked defenseman
Paul Mara and his 47 points, but they still wanted more sand, so they dealt Mara to Boston for
Nick Boynton.
Suddenly, Jovanovski and Boynton had helped elevate a defensive unit that was already emerging as one of the league's most underrated.
Zbynek Michalek and future captain
Keith Ballard were dynamic as rookie defenders and, along with
Derek Morris and
Dennis Seidenberg, the Coyotes now boast as good a blue-line corps as any team in the league.
