The Arizona Coyotes took major strides in their rebuild selecting 12 prospects in the 2023 NHL Draft.
The Arizona Coyotes made major strides during the 2023 NHL Draft. The team had a total of 12 draft picks truly marking a turning point in the Coyotes rebuild.
"I do feel like it's an exciting time," Coyotes associate director of amateur scouting Ryan Jankowski said via NHL.com’s Adam Kimelman. "We were excited after last year's draft with the three first-rounders (Logan Cooley, Conor Geekie, Maveric Lamoureux). Now we add in the forward, the defenseman and the goalies, and it's starting to round out even more now. That's Bill's plan, round this out with really top-notch prospects and a lot of draft picks so that we have what I call stocked cupboards."
While these 12 prospects won’t be ready to join Arizona this upcoming season, adding the multitude of players that the Coyotes did during the draft is huge for a team that continues to try and build a younger core.
The Coyotes draft was headlined by their sixth overall selection in the first round, Dmitri Simashev. While the vast majority of analysts and scouts saw the 6-foot-4 Russian defenseman being picked outside the top-10, the Coyotes fell in love with Simashev’s game and felt he was too good to pass up on.
"We didn't want to lose him," Arizona director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski said. "If this is the player we want, let's just go get him. It would have crushed us not to get him."
The Coyotes selected another Russian with the 12th pick in 6-foot-5 forward in Daniil But. Both Simashev and But are expected to play for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl of the KHL as they continue their development.
"They're going to have great situations to play, whether it's in the KHL, where hopefully they play most of their games, or even in the MHL," Jankowski said. "There's opportunities for them to play and develop. It's nice to have players here with us in North America or even in Finland or Sweden, or wherever it is, to let's say be a little bit more hands-on, but most of the players in this draft are two years away anyways, so what we call it is free development. It's good leagues. Those are good hockey players and after two years we see where things are at and then get to a point of, are they ready to come and are they able to come."
The Coyotes took a unique approach by selecting players with a ton of size as they did not draft a single prospect under six feet tall. It seems Arizona is looking to replicate what teams such as the Florida Panthers and Vegas Golden Knights have done and build a strong physical team.
"That's always been Bill's thing, is to be big," Jankowski said. "If you look back at his St. Louis drafts and even our drafts in Buffalo, and Darryl's drafts to some extent in Tampa, it's getting some size and being big. It did work out that way. It obviously speaks to what Vegas accomplished this year. You've got your (Clayton) Kellers and your (Logan) Cooleys, and you need to make sure you've got some support around them with some bigger players, too."
It's been a long rebuild for the Coyotes thus far but it seems the pieces are finally starting to come together as the future looks bright in the Valley.