Coyotes reveal plan for NHL offseason: 'We're not going to do dumb sh*t'

It's been a tumultuous start to the Arizona Coyotes' offseason, to say the least.

After months of optimism that the team would finally find a new, permanent home in Tempe, those dreams were dashed last month when the residents of the Phoenix suburb overwhelmingly voted "no" to the arena proposal that would have been almost 100% privately funded — literally choosing a landfill over a new rink.

With the Coyotes' future in Arizona very much in the air, and with the team heading back to ASU's 5,000-seat college rink for the second straight season, general manager Bill Armstrong has the unenviable task of trying to turn around the actual on-ice product and roster while the situation off the ice crumbles around him.

However, after a weekend trade that saw the Coyotes bring in a young, cheap blueliner with plenty of upside in Sean Durzi from the LA Kings, the team is showing it still intends to sign players to try and get better rather than accept its fate as the NHL's perennial punching bag while its future off the ice gets sorted.

Who knows whether any of it will actually work out or not (this team has stunk for a while), but it's a sentiment that was echoed by the general manager following the weekend transaction.

"We want to move forward with our group and have them drive our group organically, where our best players play and we have fill-ins around them and we get value players until our young guys get to that point where they’re ready," Armstrong said, via Craig Morgan of gophnx.com.

"That doesn’t mean we’re not going to swing at younger guys that we think are going to fit in and can be there when we win a championship. We have no problem with that, but we’re not going to do dumb sh*t. We’re going to sign value players — good players — based on age and budget."

Signing value players and not doing dumb sh*t is definitely one way to get your rebuild up to where it needs to be. The other way to supercharge a rebuild is obviously through the draft, and the Coyotes head into this year's event with a whopping 12 draft picks to work with, including seven selections in the first three rounds.

According to Morgan, the Coyotes have been telling teams across the league they plan to be active in the trade market this offseason, and maybe even on the floor of the NHL draft this week.

"While it is unlikely that Armstrong will trade the No. 6 and No. 12 picks in this year’s draft (unless it means moving down a couple spots and acquiring an additional asset), the Coyotes had nine second-round picks over the next three drafts (now eight), and nine third-round picks over the next three drafts. They want to leverage some of that draft capital for existing players and Durzi was the first domino to fall," Morgan wrote.

There have been no concrete developments, at least publicly, on the team's arena situation since the Tempe vote debacle, but the team and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman are still optimistic the Coyotes can survive in in the desert long-term, and certainly won't waver from that narrative as the team hunts for a new home.

“They’re in the process of exploring the alternatives that they have in the Greater Phoenix Area, and they do have a number of options,” Bettman told Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman last week. “I think by mid-season we should have a pretty good handle on what their situation is, and if we need to explore further options at that time, we’ll consult with management and figure out what to do.”

The NHL draft goes this Wednesday and Thursday in Nashville, while free agency kicks off July 1.