Arizona Coyotes - Welcome to Mullett Arena!

[WarningTrakPower]

He's coming home! Auston Matthews has signed a 7yr contract with Arizona!!!



This was the only free agent signing we ended up making and the trade for Ryan McDonagh shored up our defense.

Here are the line combinations to start the season:



Nick Schmaltz is now on our 3rd line and since he is making ~$8.5m for this year and next ($5.85m cap hit), we might need to look to move him at some point.

John Farinacci was our 3rd round pick in 2019 and signed after a monster season at Harvard (24G & 22A in 34 games).

Looking ahead, Jakub Chychrun is now in the final year of his contract. Our preference would be to keep him, but we will keep our options open.

We are running out the same two goalies as last year, but we could definitely use an upgrade at this position.



I'd like to see a more even split on the goalie starts, but since I am GM only I can't edit these settings.
Karel Vejmelka is also on the last year of his contract.

What do you think of the team?? We are going to start simming the regular season today, so hopefully another update coming soon!

[WarningTrakPower]

Here are some of the bigger transactions from the offseason:

Trades
-Evan Bouchard to Calgary for a 1st
-Xavier Bourgault (22nd overall in 2021) to Winnipeg for Dylan Samberg & Arvid Holm *This trade makes zero sense for the Oilers*
-Oilers traded a 1st to Vegas for Daniil Chayka (38th overall in 2021)
-Noah Gregor to Carolina for a 2nd
-Iles swap Brock Nelson for James Reimer
-Iles trade Alex Romanov to Pitt for a 3rd
-Pitt flipped Alex Romanov to STL for a 3rd
-Flyers trade Emil Andrae (54th overall in 2020) to Van for Conor Garland
-STL traded Ryan O'Reilly to Wash for Vincent Iorio (55th overall in 2020)

Signings
VAN signed Brandon Montour (3x2.63)
TOR signed Sam Reinhart (3x5.65)
TOR signed Devon Toews (4x6.04)
STL signed Tony DeAngelo (3x5.72)
STL signed Brett Pesce (3x2.92)
SEA signed Matt Grzelcyk (3x4.32)
OTT signed Daniel Sprong (3x2.73)
FLA signed Ryan Hartman (3x5.53)
FLA signed Elias Lindholm (5x6.09)
DET signed Anthony Mantha (3x2.73)
CHI signed Tyson Barrie (3x4.815)
BUFF resigned Casey Mittelstadt (3x3.12)

[CanuckJohnny]

Hey, good first playoff run!

Congratulations on bringing Matthews home (I was like, why did Toronto have room for Reinhart AND Toews? and then I was like, oh yeah, no Matthews).

Man, the weird trading AI in this game...

And those contracts... I wonder if there's a way they could let us do some kind of contract scale as a setting to try and correct it. I see where it says on the league info the contract number for an Average/Good/Great player, but it would be nice to be able to edit that, or maybe to use cap percentage or something. Maybe it's just the game is very poor at evaluating players? Like DeAngelo and Toews should not be in the same ballpark for their AAV. And Lindholm should be getting way more than $6M/yr.

Happy the Canucks got Montour for cheap though lol (or maybe he's underrated in the game and not that good?)

Good luck on your next season, you look poised to make a legit run. If your goalie can get hot at least.

[WarningTrakPower]

After 33 games, we are 20-12-1 for 41 points which puts us 6th in the Western Conference!
We also have quite a few games in hand over the teams just ahead of us.



Couple surprises out East as Tampa is sitting in 2nd last and the Islanders only have 8 wins in 35 games.



Here are the stats from our forwards so far:



Nick Schmaltz has played great, but being down on the 3rd line making $8.45m makes me think we should look to move him.

Also, we could try moving Cooley to LW (he is only "12" positionally at LW right now) and slide Bedard to Centre which would open up a spot on RW on the 2nd line for Schmaltz.
This would push Kuzmenko down to the 3rd line however (and we could play him at RW to keep Crouse on the 3rd line),

*Let us know if you think this would be good idea!*

Here are the stats from our D so far:



We could use an upgrade here for a RHD to play with McDonagh in the 2nd half.

Here are the stats from our Goalies so far:



Somewhat surprised that Vejmelka has gotten the bulk of the starts, but we will see if Prosvetov can get hot and regain that #1 starter role the rest of the way.

Tough stretch ahead on our schedule as we play 4 games in the next 6 nights (on the road vs Winnipeg & the Isles then home vs Vegas & Boston).

One guy on the trade block that caught our attention is Will Butcher.
He isn't the flashiest player, but he had a nice 2022/23 in Seattle and off to a very good start to the year with Detroit (only making $1m).



Also, we have Conor Geekie getting good icetime in the AHL as a 20yr old. Someone we will need to keep an eye on for a future callup.

Next update will likely be a recap after the trade deadline passes!

[WarningTrakPower]

We have finished the 2024/25 regular season with a record of 49-32-1 which gives us 99 (!) points! Winnipeg won the Central division with 100 points!

Here are the Western Conference standings:



Anaheim had a hot start to their season, so tough to see them miss out on the playoffs this year.

Here are the Eastern Conference standings:



Detroit had an amazing season finishing with 114 points and losing their last 3 games heading to playoffs.
Dylan Larkin had 110 points and Lucas Raymond had 106 points (47 goals!)
Mitch Marner didn't miss playing with Auston Matthews as he had a career year putting up 44 goals and 60 assists playing with Tavares & Nylander.

We were looking to bolster our lineup at the trade deadline only to find out we had no money to add anyone of significance.



We switched up the lines a bit as mentioned in an earlier post.
We moved Logan Cooley to LW and Connor Bedard to Centre. This made room for Nick Schmaltz to move from the 3rd line to the 2nd line.
We moved Andrei Kuzmenko down to the 3rd line on RW.

Here are the lines we will be using to start the playoffs:



This paid immediate dividends as the "new" 3rd line had this stat line in their first game together.



Speaking of Kuzmenko, we signed him to a 3yr extension at $3.25m per season.



Here is what the playoff bracket looks like:



Here are the regular season stats for our forwards:



Nice to see Connor Bedard put up 38 goals in his sophomore season!

Here are the regular season stats for our defense:



Victor Soderstrom (somehow) managed to score 11 goals in his rookie season while logging 3rd pair minutes!

We did make two waiver claims in January to add some depth to both our forwards and defense.
We claimed Brayden McNabb Vegas. He only got in to 8 games for us and is on an expiring contract (Cam York got injured in the AHL so we didn't really have anyone else ready).
Also, we claimed Akil Thomas from LA. He is listed as a RW, but he has decent faceoff skills (should one our centres get injured and he needs to draw into the lineup).

Now, our goalies have been less than stellar this year and our coach's preference is to play Karel Vejmelka with the starters workload.
Below are their (underwhelming) stats on the season:



After the rookie season Ivan Prosvetov had, I am surprised our coach is sticking with Vejmelka. IF we could change the goalie start preferences, we would, but we can't.

In the first round we will be facing Minnesota. Filip Gustavsson played in a remarkable 74 games this season.
The Wild have a very strong group of D that include: Brodin, Spurgeon, Dumba & Calen Addison. Also, Carson Lambos was having a nice season, but hurt his elbow and will be injured for a few months still.
Up front they are led by Kirill Kaprizov who finished with 102 points in only 74 games. Joel Eriksson Ek scored 30 goals for the first time centring their top line.
They also have Matthew Boldy playing RW with those two and he scored 71 points after having 80 points last season.

During the regular season we did win 2 out of 3 vs Minnesota, but they are a very tough test in the first round.

We will post another update soon once we finish round #1!

[WarningTrakPower]

Round 1 Recap



Monster offensive game in the first game of the playoffs!



Huge bounce back game for Filip Gustavsson and the Wild in Game 2.



Quick start with a goal in the first 2min by Auston Matthews, but could not keep the momentum.



After being down 4-1 after 40min, we had an amazing 3rd period to tie the series at 2!





Tough loss in Game 5 and we are on the brink of elimination!



An awesome 2nd period and we've tied the series back up at 3 games a piece.





Karel Vejmelka had a great performance in his most important start of his career, stopping 19 of 20 in Game 7!

Our top line put up some amazing offensive numbers in round 1!



Round 2



Great start to the second round and Auston Matthews put up 2G & 2A!

Note - Winnipeg is using Phillip Grubauer in nets over Connor Hellebuyck (which I found odd).



Solid bounce back for Winnipeg in this one and a weak performance from Vejmelka (pulled in the 3rd period).



Tough loss here in game 3 to fall behind in the series.



Huge win to tie another series at 2 and we are off to Game 5!



SEVEN goals in Game 5 and we have a 3-2 series lead!
Ryan McDonagh had ELEVEN shots on goal and 2 goals!



Axel Jonsson Fjallby was the hero in OT to force a Game 7!



Lots of goals in this series and we have moved on to the Western Conference finals!
Our top line had an awesome performance taking all 3 stars in Game 7.

Western Conference Finals



Strong start to jump out to a 1-0 series lead!



Tough 2nd period after being up 2-0 after 20min and the series is tied at 1.



Vegas absolutely throttled us in this one. Vejmelka was in for all 6 goals.



Good bounce back and Vejmelka shut the door stopping 28 of 29 shots.
Series is tied up at 2!



Back to back strong games and we have a 3-2 series lead!
Vejmelka stopped 42 of 43 shots!!!



We are off to the Stanley Cup Finals!!
Nice perseverance after going down 1-0 after 20min, we fought back to win the series on the road.

STANLEY CUP FINALS



Good start to the series for the Panthers and we are down 1-0.



We were down 4-2 after 40min, but we got goals from John Farinacci and Michael McLeod in the 3rd period to tie up the game.
Anthony Duclair was the OT hero and we are down 2-0 in the series!



In a must win game, the offense showed up in this one. Victor Soderstrom had 2G & 1A and Auston Matthews had another 2 goal game!



20min from going down 3-1 in the series, but we came out and got goals from Farinacci & McLeod again and Nick Schmaltz put us ahead with ~4min remaining in regulation.
Series is tied at 2!



Spencer Knight stopped 33 of 34 and we are down 3-2 in the finals!



Last home game of the year and the fans at Mullett Arena went home ecstatic! We outshot Florida 41-29 and force a game 7!



The Florida Panthers are the 2025 Stanley Cup Champions!
Huge congrats to them for going on a crazy playoff run, very nice little team they have.



Note - How about Florida coming back from down 0-3 in the series vs Detroit!!



Extremely proud of the team we have built and look forward to the offseason prior to another deep playoff run next year!!

Here are the playoff stats for our forwards:



Auston Matthews absolutely carried this team on his back scoring 24(!) goals in 27 games!

Here are the playoff stats for our D:



Ryan McDonagh had an awesome playoffs, what a nice pickup he was.

Here are the playoff stats for our goalie(s):



Karel Vejmelka is on an expiring contract and finding a new starting goalie will (most likely) be our main focus this offseason!

Thanks again for reading this (very extended) dynasty report and your feedback is always appreciated!

[CanuckJohnny]

Nice run! So close.

[artlan]

Terrific journal!

[WarningTrakPower]

We are back! Let's recap the offseason before starting the 2025/26 season!

-Jakob Chychrun went to free agency and signed with Washington for 3yr and $5.55m per season.
-Nico Sturm signed with Carolina in free agency (2yr at $1.44m).
-Signed Josh Doan to a 2yr entry level contract.
-Traded Lawson Crouse to Boston for Jakub Lauko.
We wanted to move the 2yr and $4.3m per contract and add a depth winger (only has 2 NHL games played at 25yr old).

We found a new goalie in free agency. We signed Jake Oettinger to a 6yr contract worth $6m per season!!!

Let's take a look at the forward lines at the start of the preseason:



Luke Misa (54th overall in 2024) has a very good shot at breaking camp with the team at only 19 years old (his brother Michael Misa went 1st overall in 2025 to NY Isles).
We have Jakub Lauko, Liam Kirk & Josh Doan looking for their opportunity. Liam Kirk is likely destined for a return to the AHL after spending all of last season with Arizona.

Here are the D pairs to start the year:



We need to add at least one depth defender as our next man would be one of: Jeremy Langlois (21), Maveric Lamoureux (21) or Cameron Allen (20).
Ideally, we will find someone to push Cam York to the #7 position for depth.

We will sim up to about January 1st and be back with a team update at that time!!

[WarningTrakPower]

After 41 games, we are sitting 23-18-0 with 46 points which puts it currently in 9th place in the Western Conference.



Here are our forwards offensive stats at the midway point of the season:



Solid offensive production from the top 6 forwards so far. Connor Bedard is leading the league with 27 goals. Will he be able to score more then 50?

Here are the offensive stats for our Dmen after 41 games:



Mikey Anderson has a "game rating" of 58 while averaging over 20 minutes a game. We will be looking to upgrade our 2nd D pair before the trade deadline.

Here are our goalies stats so far:



Very surprised to see how poorly Jake Oettinger has been performing so far. Hoping he has a good second half of the season.

Anaheim signed Igor Shesterkin to a 2yr $21.68m contract, but they are still playing John Gibson as the starter (which I find odd).



We are going to sim until the end of the regular season and we will check back in after!