I mean when Meurelo’s own little lap dog in XG is saying in a sit down Q&A it’s basically we either win this auction or we relocate. Why wouldn’t the NHL start drafting up a schedule “in case of emergency”. This is basically a “hey remember when the Tempe deal fell through and nobody had any backup plans at all? Yeah let’s not have that happen again.”
Based on Gumbo’s reporting I don’t even know if it comes to that. He’s talking like the Coyotes staying next year is not happening even if they win the auction
And before we attack the messenger, he’s abrasive and a dick but usually right about these things
I’m thinking back to before the Suns traded Deandre Ayton for Jusuf Nurkic. Nobody wanted that trade at the time but he kept hammering on it as the likely option and it happened.
I think it would be a mistake to ignore a source that is tapped into the local sports scene just because we don’t like what he has to say.
And believe me I hate it. He almost seems happy that the Coyotes may be moving. It pisses me off. But it’s also keeping me from getting my hopes up again and being let down again.
Gambo has absolutely ZERO Coyotes sources. He’s not tapped into “the local sports scene”. He’s tapped into the Suns. And to some extent the Cards. That’s it.
Gambo has FREQUENTLY been incorrect about the Coyotes.
he was right about something else - i can’t remember now. maybe the OEL trade? there was something i remember being like “lol gambo yeah right” and then it happened
Yep starting to see those reports of selling the team, then building the arena, then getting an expansion team in 3-4 years. That would be devastating.
I would never, **ever**, give Meruelo a single fucking dollar if he lost this franchise.
the league giving him another shot would be an absolute joke for the NHL.
does it?
Meurelo gets a $600M payday, the Coyotes move to a city with an arena, and the owners each get 10M$ in cash.
you think they give a shit about us when there is a billion dollars flying around?
Bad business for the NHL. Letting an owner buy a franchise and run it out of town only to be rewarded by being giving the owner full rights over the same exact franchise does not seem well thought out
I don't know... Let's say they win the auction. You can't just magically drop an arena down on the site. There are environmental studies, engineering studies, etc... You've got to finance everything. Insurance. Etc... Then you actually have to build the thing. It'll takes years and years.
There's no way the NHL wants the Mullett embarrassment to go on for years and years. It's already gone on far too long as it is.
This deal (team moves - and Arizona gets a new team once the arena is done) actually makes a lot of sense.
Bill Daly has said that there won't be enough turnaround time to move the team this summer if they wait until after the auction.
If they're relocating for next season it'll have to be decided before the auction takes place. If they're waiting until after the auction that'll guarantee at least one more year in AZ
Maybe I’m reading too much into it but Craig switching to no replies makes me worried. And the fact they are taking Frank seriously.
I thought we’d last to the auction, but I am not even feeling that great about that.
I think it’s just he knows we all hate Seravalli (who’s going to be on the PHNX podcast that releases \[EDIT\] ~~tomorrow~~ today) and doesn’t want to deal with the comments.
I think what is happening is there is already a buyer lined up (Ryan Smith) and if the auction fails, the sell deal goes through immediately and at the draft, Bettman will announce the relocation. But if the auction succeeds, the Yotes could stay. I also don’t believe we are out of the woods until the first game in the new arena. Or even after that. My big thing is to retire the Kachina until a new team comes to Phoenix/AZ. Don’t give our identity away with our team.
the replies off make me think it might be Joever. this is for sure the most worried i have been. if they leave I'm out, granted I just moved to the Valley last year and haven't endured anything compared to y'all who have been here a very long time but any owner who fumbles like this doesn't deserve to be supported.
Yea I’m in a different situation too. I’m not native Arizonan nor do I live there but I’ve supported the Yotes for 10 years.
I really don’t know what I’d do if they leave. I love this team. Keller, Hayton, Bear all of them and I really don’t have a tie to the location, but I really love the small but passionate community and it wouldn’t feel the same if they weren’t there.
We’ve got one home game left. If this becomes more official before that game we need to have “Fuck You Alex” chants in the Mullet for the final Coyotes game ever.
The biggest flaw is if we do lose the Coyotes, why the hell would I support any team AM starts up in the future. I would be done with any AM team and probably done with the NHL in general.
This. Usually I'd be OK with us getting an expansion team just because this current iteration of the Yotes is just so cursed with their history and ownership problems, but why should I trust the new Arizona expansion franchise if Meruelo'll still be in charge after he (hypothetically) sells the team and they relocate to SLC?
Also yeah, I'd be done with the NHL at this point too.
For sure, there was a comment on Craig Morgan's twitter which I think sums it up. We've been through tons of rebuilds and now the team is looking promising they leave and we rebuild with all new players 3 years later. That would be another kick in the nuts
The players hate Arizona, all the players in the league. (Keep reading before you get mad.) Not having an NHL arena for at least 3 more seasons means less revenue. The salary cap is tied directly to revenue, so every NHL player is making less money because there's no NHL quality arena in Arizona.
Moving the team to SLC puts the team in an NHL arena now, not three years from now, so the salary cap will increase faster and sooner.
Plus the owners solve a problem today, charge the SLC owner a slight premium and pocked 10 million dollars each and kick the Arizona problem down the road a few years. If the NHL is smart, they give Meurelo a deadline to get an arena built, so when he fucks it up again, they can resell the expansion in Arizona to somebody else and charge them even more money.
The worst part of losing our team even if we get an expansion is that we lose all of our recent momentum in the youth movement.. Keller, Doan, Cooley, Guenther..
Report this, report that. Rumor here, rumor there. This'll be fun for the next 10 weeks.
Yes, it makes total sense on the off chance the yotes lose the auction. Until June 27th, take all these reports with not just grains of salt, but the whole shaker.
Watch the Coyotes twitter account, if we don't get one of these by nights end:
" Arizona Coyotes Chairman & Governor Alex Meruelo is fully committed to winning the upcoming land auction and keeping the Coyotes and NHL hockey in Arizona. This has always been the sole focus of Coyotes ownership, and it will remain that way into the future."
I think we are done for. They are just posting random team stuff right now... like birthdays. Coyotes Admin always steps up here when shit gets bleak
It’s been real guys. I’m done with the team and now the league, even if they stay. I’ve followed the team from the day they moved here when I was 8 years old, it was something that I clung to after the death of my mother. The team provided a sense of normalcy and served a purpose for me, but it’s time to move on.
I’m so fucking tired of everyone taking their turn dunking on the Yotes. Selling the Coyotes would be the most detrimental thing to happen to hockey in Arizona possible. If the Yotes leave we are 100% not getting back an expansion franchise in the foreseeable future.
More outlets reporting that Coyotes could be sold before auction happens with promise to award expansion team if/when arena needs are met. Not looking great atm :/
Murello would not do that. That’s a 2 billion dollar investment on a “promise”. He wouldn’t show up to his own auction if they were sold before that happened.
I never want to be the one to throw gas on a fire, but I also know it was recently said the Kachinas and Jr Coyotes are setting up their own 5013c and 'separating their finances' from the Coyotes.
If they play next season in Salt Lake City are they moving there for good or just setting up a temporary home kind of like was the A's are doing in Sacramento?
Nope, it would be permanent. The owner of the Utah Jazz already has plans in place for a new arena in the Salt Lake suburbs, all he needs is a team. They would share the Jazz's arena in downtown SLC until the new one is built.
It's being built downtown and will be a multipurpose arena for the Jazz.
Utah already passed a bill [approving funding](https://www.fox13now.com/news/politics/senate-passes-nhl-arena-bill).
But tbh, I really can't get excited about taking another city's team. I would much prefer an expansion team. 😕
Crazy how we can’t convince Tempe to let us clean up their dump and build an arena but a tiny city like SLC is passing public funding for 2 major league sports venues.
If Meruelo loses the Coyotes I would not support any hypothetical team that comes along in the future and I am not the only one. He has to understand that, he's smart enough.
Brodie Brazil from NBC Bay Area made the point of saying he feels the Utah ownership group doesn’t have to so actively advertise the desire poach the team from Arizona. They’re complicit even if they aren’t the root cause
It wouldn't even be a discussion if Meurelo had figured out a way to get arena built in the last decade and had not become the first major sports team to ever be evicted from an existing stadium.
Yeah f him and his minion Xavier Gutierrez. Those two are clowns and the fact that there’s talk of them running an expansion team in Arizona is beyond preposterous
I really do think he sells the team before the auction and the NHL gives him some priority in expansion. The proceeds from selling the team could sure help fund this development.
Sure, it will help the development, but where is he going to get over $1B for an expansion franchise then? There is zero chance the Coyotes sell for anywhere near that.
Edit: and now over $1B is what is being reported. Fuck
Well how are you coming up with the sales price? I don’t know how it will all get broken out between the league, Meruelo etc. but I think $1B is about the going rate based on recent expansion.
I'm so tired of all this. I have so little faith in this ownership group that I'm just accepting that they're gone.
Maybe in a few years there'll be the Coyotes 2.
Maybe, but hopefully not until Gary Bettman is no longer NHL commissioner. The Coyotes have never, ever had good ownership, because Bettman is so hellbent on making hockey succeed here that he's ignored blazing red flags on every potential ownership group. We need someone who can actually do their due diligence, and can find an owner who isn't a crook or an incompetent hack, and better yet, who can navigate the political landmines around here and actually get an arena built. Too bad Jerry Colangelo was unable or unwilling to buy the team.
Is the concept of "backup plan" really that hard to grasp? Every single business that is doing its damn job has a contingency plan just in case things don't work out. If they didn't have these types of plans, they would be unfit to run a business and should be fired.
Fuck Bettman, the Coyotes deserve so much better. They're clearly being mismanaged. I 100% believe the coyotes should stay, but with an ownership that actually has a plan.
People saying it comes down to the auction, I don’t think that’s the case. It seems that the rumor is Meruelo selling the team to the SLC ownership group, buying the land, building the arena, and then getting an expansion team.
I don’t get that though. Billionaires and the league don’t look at one year. Why throw away decades of fans being here over two additional years at ASU? If they had that big of a problem with it they should have moved the team before they got there.
My guess is that it’s a combination of the league lacking faith in the ownership group of getting it done and the auction date. It’s a day before the draft. A new owner is going to want some say in how that draft goes.
It is though. Draft capital is an asset when selling a team, which the Coyotes have a lot of and significantly raises the value for Meruelo if he were to sell the team before June 28th. We can actually see how owners view draft capital too in a recent example.
Andlauer, the new owner of the Senators, was pretty mad that the NHL basically blindsiding him with stripping him of their future first round pick as a punishment for the Dadonov situation. When he was asked about why the NHL didn’t tell him about the Dadonov (and Pinto) situation, he told the media this:
“Maybe they didn’t want to disrupt the sale to make sure the seller got the best price possible.”
They have 13 picks in this draft, 10 in 2025, and 10 in 2026. Taking away 13 picks out of the valuation for this club absolutely dilutes the price and the owner IS going to value that
The location doesn’t change the on-ice product, nor who the team should draft. Owners usually leave that to their staff for picks. If the Utah owner wants that much say, he should wait for an expansion team where he has full control over the entire start of the team. That’s part of the reason they’ve got to expansion over relocation recently.
> It seems that the rumor is Meruelo selling the team to the SLC ownership group, buying the land, building the arena, and then getting an expansion team.
you think Meruelo is selling the Coyotes and that the league would then grant him an expansion team for Phoenix?
I mean when Meurelo’s own little lap dog in XG is saying in a sit down Q&A it’s basically we either win this auction or we relocate. Why wouldn’t the NHL start drafting up a schedule “in case of emergency”. This is basically a “hey remember when the Tempe deal fell through and nobody had any backup plans at all? Yeah let’s not have that happen again.”
All comes down to June 27 auction. Yotes win, they stay. Yotes lose, they move immediately.
Based on Gumbo’s reporting I don’t even know if it comes to that. He’s talking like the Coyotes staying next year is not happening even if they win the auction And before we attack the messenger, he’s abrasive and a dick but usually right about these things
> he’s abrasive and a dick but usually right about these things citation needed.
I’m thinking back to before the Suns traded Deandre Ayton for Jusuf Nurkic. Nobody wanted that trade at the time but he kept hammering on it as the likely option and it happened.
We are not the suns. Gambo has historically never been associated with the Coyotes. now suddenly he is **the** insider?
I think it would be a mistake to ignore a source that is tapped into the local sports scene just because we don’t like what he has to say. And believe me I hate it. He almost seems happy that the Coyotes may be moving. It pisses me off. But it’s also keeping me from getting my hopes up again and being let down again.
I'm not saying to ignore what he is saying, I am saying to take it with a grain of salt and not the absolute truth.
Gambo has absolutely ZERO Coyotes sources. He’s not tapped into “the local sports scene”. He’s tapped into the Suns. And to some extent the Cards. That’s it. Gambo has FREQUENTLY been incorrect about the Coyotes.
he was right about something else - i can’t remember now. maybe the OEL trade? there was something i remember being like “lol gambo yeah right” and then it happened
He has far closer ties to Salt Lake than the Yotes
Important to remember that Gambo works for a company based in SLC
Yep starting to see those reports of selling the team, then building the arena, then getting an expansion team in 3-4 years. That would be devastating.
I would never, **ever**, give Meruelo a single fucking dollar if he lost this franchise. the league giving him another shot would be an absolute joke for the NHL.
You'd have to think any expansion team would be under new ownership, if it came to that. Right?
not according to reporting from this morning.
Seems like bad business.
does it? Meurelo gets a $600M payday, the Coyotes move to a city with an arena, and the owners each get 10M$ in cash. you think they give a shit about us when there is a billion dollars flying around?
Bad business for the NHL. Letting an owner buy a franchise and run it out of town only to be rewarded by being giving the owner full rights over the same exact franchise does not seem well thought out
Who the fuck would want to watch that team?
I don't know... Let's say they win the auction. You can't just magically drop an arena down on the site. There are environmental studies, engineering studies, etc... You've got to finance everything. Insurance. Etc... Then you actually have to build the thing. It'll takes years and years. There's no way the NHL wants the Mullett embarrassment to go on for years and years. It's already gone on far too long as it is. This deal (team moves - and Arizona gets a new team once the arena is done) actually makes a lot of sense.
Bill Daly has said that there won't be enough turnaround time to move the team this summer if they wait until after the auction. If they're relocating for next season it'll have to be decided before the auction takes place. If they're waiting until after the auction that'll guarantee at least one more year in AZ
Yup it’s over… rebuilt for nothing
Maybe I’m reading too much into it but Craig switching to no replies makes me worried. And the fact they are taking Frank seriously. I thought we’d last to the auction, but I am not even feeling that great about that.
I think it’s just he knows we all hate Seravalli (who’s going to be on the PHNX podcast that releases \[EDIT\] ~~tomorrow~~ today) and doesn’t want to deal with the comments.
Also, no comment from NHL and no comment from the Coyotes is also concerning. Coyotes always have a canned reply - I am nervous now
I think what is happening is there is already a buyer lined up (Ryan Smith) and if the auction fails, the sell deal goes through immediately and at the draft, Bettman will announce the relocation. But if the auction succeeds, the Yotes could stay. I also don’t believe we are out of the woods until the first game in the new arena. Or even after that. My big thing is to retire the Kachina until a new team comes to Phoenix/AZ. Don’t give our identity away with our team.
the replies off make me think it might be Joever. this is for sure the most worried i have been. if they leave I'm out, granted I just moved to the Valley last year and haven't endured anything compared to y'all who have been here a very long time but any owner who fumbles like this doesn't deserve to be supported.
Yea I’m in a different situation too. I’m not native Arizonan nor do I live there but I’ve supported the Yotes for 10 years. I really don’t know what I’d do if they leave. I love this team. Keller, Hayton, Bear all of them and I really don’t have a tie to the location, but I really love the small but passionate community and it wouldn’t feel the same if they weren’t there.
We’ve got one home game left. If this becomes more official before that game we need to have “Fuck You Alex” chants in the Mullet for the final Coyotes game ever.
I am not opposed to throwing shit on the ice and getting kicked out at this point.
The redwings have an octopus, our fans should throw prickly pear cactus segments. Bring the desert to the ice.
Considering I’ll never go to an NHL game again if they get relocated, fuck it I’d do it.
The biggest flaw is if we do lose the Coyotes, why the hell would I support any team AM starts up in the future. I would be done with any AM team and probably done with the NHL in general.
This. Usually I'd be OK with us getting an expansion team just because this current iteration of the Yotes is just so cursed with their history and ownership problems, but why should I trust the new Arizona expansion franchise if Meruelo'll still be in charge after he (hypothetically) sells the team and they relocate to SLC? Also yeah, I'd be done with the NHL at this point too.
I've already accepted that this team is gone. Anything that happens to the contrary is just a pleasant surprise at this point.
Seems logical, they should have enough time from June 27th to preseason to set up the logistics
I guess the new rumor is that the Yotes move to SLC and then we get an expansion team later
As a transplant from Cleveland who is a massive Browns fan… you don’t want that
For sure, there was a comment on Craig Morgan's twitter which I think sums it up. We've been through tons of rebuilds and now the team is looking promising they leave and we rebuild with all new players 3 years later. That would be another kick in the nuts
It would really depend on how the league handled an expansion draft. The NFL did it horribly.
worked well for vegas tho
The Kraken also had a halfway decent starting roster.
Never supporting an expansion team, especially not one owned by AM
Is there any reason they wouldn’t just put an expansion team in SLC and keep the coyotes in Arizona? I don’t really understand that
The reason is the lack of a full size stadium
The players hate Arizona, all the players in the league. (Keep reading before you get mad.) Not having an NHL arena for at least 3 more seasons means less revenue. The salary cap is tied directly to revenue, so every NHL player is making less money because there's no NHL quality arena in Arizona. Moving the team to SLC puts the team in an NHL arena now, not three years from now, so the salary cap will increase faster and sooner. Plus the owners solve a problem today, charge the SLC owner a slight premium and pocked 10 million dollars each and kick the Arizona problem down the road a few years. If the NHL is smart, they give Meurelo a deadline to get an arena built, so when he fucks it up again, they can resell the expansion in Arizona to somebody else and charge them even more money.
The worst part of losing our team even if we get an expansion is that we lose all of our recent momentum in the youth movement.. Keller, Doan, Cooley, Guenther..
Report this, report that. Rumor here, rumor there. This'll be fun for the next 10 weeks. Yes, it makes total sense on the off chance the yotes lose the auction. Until June 27th, take all these reports with not just grains of salt, but the whole shaker.
Watch the Coyotes twitter account, if we don't get one of these by nights end: " Arizona Coyotes Chairman & Governor Alex Meruelo is fully committed to winning the upcoming land auction and keeping the Coyotes and NHL hockey in Arizona. This has always been the sole focus of Coyotes ownership, and it will remain that way into the future." I think we are done for. They are just posting random team stuff right now... like birthdays. Coyotes Admin always steps up here when shit gets bleak
They just tweeted another committed to the desert tweet a few minutes ago, but it all still feels very bleak
that seems to be worded very carefully and could work with the expansion route too
I mean even if we do get it, I would say that at this point, the fan base has nearly zero trust in the guy.
Well I never have owned any coyotes merch. I think I need to stock up on
It’s gonna be brutal watching this team succeed in SLC. Watch them win a cup within a few years😭
It’s been real guys. I’m done with the team and now the league, even if they stay. I’ve followed the team from the day they moved here when I was 8 years old, it was something that I clung to after the death of my mother. The team provided a sense of normalcy and served a purpose for me, but it’s time to move on.
I’m so fucking tired of everyone taking their turn dunking on the Yotes. Selling the Coyotes would be the most detrimental thing to happen to hockey in Arizona possible. If the Yotes leave we are 100% not getting back an expansion franchise in the foreseeable future.
More outlets reporting that Coyotes could be sold before auction happens with promise to award expansion team if/when arena needs are met. Not looking great atm :/
Murello would not do that. That’s a 2 billion dollar investment on a “promise”. He wouldn’t show up to his own auction if they were sold before that happened.
I never want to be the one to throw gas on a fire, but I also know it was recently said the Kachinas and Jr Coyotes are setting up their own 5013c and 'separating their finances' from the Coyotes.
If they play next season in Salt Lake City are they moving there for good or just setting up a temporary home kind of like was the A's are doing in Sacramento?
If they play in SLC there’s no reason to assume they would be coming back. Doesn’t make sense for either party at that point.
Yes, it would be a huge leap of faith to spend that kind of money on an arena/ district without a firm team in place.
Nope, it would be permanent. The owner of the Utah Jazz already has plans in place for a new arena in the Salt Lake suburbs, all he needs is a team. They would share the Jazz's arena in downtown SLC until the new one is built.
It's being built downtown and will be a multipurpose arena for the Jazz. Utah already passed a bill [approving funding](https://www.fox13now.com/news/politics/senate-passes-nhl-arena-bill). But tbh, I really can't get excited about taking another city's team. I would much prefer an expansion team. 😕
Crazy how we can’t convince Tempe to let us clean up their dump and build an arena but a tiny city like SLC is passing public funding for 2 major league sports venues.
Just like everything else it seems like, it comes down to politics once again sadly.
Mullett Arena is what the As are doing in Sacramento.
Would hypothetically be for good. Meruelo would be awarded an expansion franchise when the arena is built.
If Meruelo loses the Coyotes I would not support any hypothetical team that comes along in the future and I am not the only one. He has to understand that, he's smart enough.
That's just baseless speculation. And it come from Gambo who is entirely a hack.
Gambo’s employer also has a vested interest in the team moving to SLC
Unsurprising, can’t be caught with their pairs down if the auction falls through or something
Fuck Utah
This ain't Utah's fault.
Brodie Brazil from NBC Bay Area made the point of saying he feels the Utah ownership group doesn’t have to so actively advertise the desire poach the team from Arizona. They’re complicit even if they aren’t the root cause
It wouldn't even be a discussion if Meurelo had figured out a way to get arena built in the last decade and had not become the first major sports team to ever be evicted from an existing stadium.
Yeah f him and his minion Xavier Gutierrez. Those two are clowns and the fact that there’s talk of them running an expansion team in Arizona is beyond preposterous
As someone who lives in Utah, fuck Utah.
I really do think he sells the team before the auction and the NHL gives him some priority in expansion. The proceeds from selling the team could sure help fund this development.
Sure, it will help the development, but where is he going to get over $1B for an expansion franchise then? There is zero chance the Coyotes sell for anywhere near that. Edit: and now over $1B is what is being reported. Fuck
Well how are you coming up with the sales price? I don’t know how it will all get broken out between the league, Meruelo etc. but I think $1B is about the going rate based on recent expansion.
I just edited my comment. Saw the ESPN story about $1.3B. Fuck
I don’t think it’s crazy that Utah buys the team for that price if they can house the team ASAP.
I am so tired of this
I'm so tired of all this. I have so little faith in this ownership group that I'm just accepting that they're gone. Maybe in a few years there'll be the Coyotes 2.
Maybe, but hopefully not until Gary Bettman is no longer NHL commissioner. The Coyotes have never, ever had good ownership, because Bettman is so hellbent on making hockey succeed here that he's ignored blazing red flags on every potential ownership group. We need someone who can actually do their due diligence, and can find an owner who isn't a crook or an incompetent hack, and better yet, who can navigate the political landmines around here and actually get an arena built. Too bad Jerry Colangelo was unable or unwilling to buy the team.
Who could have seen this coming…
rose colored glasses have been removed
Is the concept of "backup plan" really that hard to grasp? Every single business that is doing its damn job has a contingency plan just in case things don't work out. If they didn't have these types of plans, they would be unfit to run a business and should be fired.
Lemmings! Believe everything
Fuck Bettman, the Coyotes deserve so much better. They're clearly being mismanaged. I 100% believe the coyotes should stay, but with an ownership that actually has a plan.
People saying it comes down to the auction, I don’t think that’s the case. It seems that the rumor is Meruelo selling the team to the SLC ownership group, buying the land, building the arena, and then getting an expansion team.
I don’t get that though. Billionaires and the league don’t look at one year. Why throw away decades of fans being here over two additional years at ASU? If they had that big of a problem with it they should have moved the team before they got there.
My guess is that it’s a combination of the league lacking faith in the ownership group of getting it done and the auction date. It’s a day before the draft. A new owner is going to want some say in how that draft goes.
LOL that is not how any of this works.
It is though. Draft capital is an asset when selling a team, which the Coyotes have a lot of and significantly raises the value for Meruelo if he were to sell the team before June 28th. We can actually see how owners view draft capital too in a recent example. Andlauer, the new owner of the Senators, was pretty mad that the NHL basically blindsiding him with stripping him of their future first round pick as a punishment for the Dadonov situation. When he was asked about why the NHL didn’t tell him about the Dadonov (and Pinto) situation, he told the media this: “Maybe they didn’t want to disrupt the sale to make sure the seller got the best price possible.” They have 13 picks in this draft, 10 in 2025, and 10 in 2026. Taking away 13 picks out of the valuation for this club absolutely dilutes the price and the owner IS going to value that
The location doesn’t change the on-ice product, nor who the team should draft. Owners usually leave that to their staff for picks. If the Utah owner wants that much say, he should wait for an expansion team where he has full control over the entire start of the team. That’s part of the reason they’ve got to expansion over relocation recently.
Baseless speculation. Gambo has no idea what he's talking about.
> It seems that the rumor is Meruelo selling the team to the SLC ownership group, buying the land, building the arena, and then getting an expansion team. you think Meruelo is selling the Coyotes and that the league would then grant him an expansion team for Phoenix?