Marty Walsh has been unafraid to criticize the Coyotes about their arena situation, but Xavier Gutierrez spoke on the NHLPA executive director's lack of communication.
The Arizona Coyotes’ toughest critic when it comes to their search for a new arena has to be NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh.
He’s been clear about his distaste towards the Coyotes organization on how they have handled this whole arena situation.
Walsh has certainly not minced words when talking about the Coyotes.
“I have serious concerns with Arizona,” Walsh said earlier this month. “I think I’ve made public statements, a lot of them and I made one today that I’m extremely disappointed in the ownership of Arizona, the president of Arizona. They have not reached out to the PA to talk about what the situation in Arizona is.”
Despite these comments, Coyotes president and CEO Xavier Gutierrez had a completely different perspective on the team’s relationship with Walsh and that is what actually the NHLPA executive director who’s failed to communicate with them.
“(Walsh) came to meet with us,” Gutierrez added via Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta. “He was at Mullett and he offered to try to work with us and help us in terms of the previous campaign that we were under. And then it seemed to stray. And the reality is both Alex Meruelo and I had met with the previous PA head on a number of occasions and kept him quite informed when he asked us to. The current one has not requested a meeting, has not requested information but has been very vocal in a process that quite frankly we work with the commissioner and we work with the league and we work with the ownership on moving forward.
“So, we’re not quite sure what the animosity is. No one understands better that Mullett is a temporary solution. We know that more than anybody knows that. We have never shied away from saying that that is the case. And he’s heard that as well. So, I’m not sure if there is a positioning to try to show the players’ association that he is at the forefront of a process that quite frankly we deal with the commissioner on.”
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has taken a very different approach compared to Walsh as he’s been vocally supporting the Coyotes and continues to relay encouraging messages even with the process taking longer than anybody would have originally expected.
Walsh’s job is to represent the players, so he is really just doing his job as he believes Mullett Arena is not good for players.
There are two sides when it comes to this story though and it’s difficult to determine who is really telling the truth.
For now the saga continues with the Coyotes still in the midst of attempting to find a permanent home in Arizona.