My Top 5 Favorite Arizona Coyotes Players (2014-24)

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By Zane Miller

When I first started watching hockey, I originally adopted the then-Phoenix Coyotes as my favorite team on the basis that they had the coolest uniforms in the NHL 2003 video game, which I bought from GameStop back when they still sold used GameCube games. I wanted to provide some context as to why I became a fan of the Coyotes despite never having been to Arizona, as their famous kachina jerseys are just that good. In fact, despite the team’s exit from the NHL, a variation of the kachina uniform is still used by the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners.

While I eventually changed my official favorite team to the Columbus Blue Jackets of my home state, my fondness for the Coyotes remained as I made them my second-favorite team. Around this time, the team broadened their identity, officially becoming the Arizona Coyotes in 2014. This serves as a convenient starting point for this list, as I was a fan of the team throughout the entirety of their run under this name.

As mentioned earlier, the Coyotes are considered an inactive team, with players and coaches being transferred to form what would become the Utah Mammoth after the 2023-24 season. While local politicians have put together a group in an effort to revive the Coyotes, this endeavor will obviously take quite a long time to see results, especially considering the primary reason behind the Coyotes leaving in the first place was the lack of a suitable arena. That being said, I feel like now is a good time to take a look back at some of my favorite Coyotes players over their final 10+ seasons. The main rule here is that they should have played at least three full seasons as an Arizona Coyote, though exceptions are allowed if it’s borderline. This article is a bit a different format than usual, but enjoy the trip down memory lane!

5. Kevin Connauton

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Connauton first got on my radar when he was a waiver wire pickup by the Blue Jackets early on in the 2014-15 season, during a particularly brutal stretch of games where it felt like every player on the team was getting injured. Through all the adversity, once December rolled around, Connauton took control of the blue line and helped the team to a five-game winning streak, including a game-winning overtime goal during that stretch. Of course, this article is about the Coyotes, so when he eventually left Columbus I was happy that he soon secured a long-term spot in the Arizona lineup.

Being a defenseman whose game didn’t particularly feature much offensive firepower, it’s tough to analyze his play based on the typical stats, but Connauton generally received a solid amount of ice time while racking up over 100 hits in each of his full seasons with the team. In 2017-18, he had his best offensive season to date with 11 goals with a positive plus-minus rate over 73 games, while the next season saw him get his best average time on ice at roughly 18 and a half minutes. While never really much of a fighter, he made his lone fight in a Coyotes uniform count in a bout with Scott Laughton of the Philadelphia Flyers. Perhaps upset that their last names happen to rhyme, the pair got into it halfway through what would be a 4-2 Flyers win. However, Connauton was the clear winner of the fight as he landed multiple punches while Laughton was unable to land a punch himself before being knocked down.

Connauton ended up playing just over half of his 360 career NHL games with the Coyotes, a career which is technically still going on as he is currently under contract with the Mammoth, though he hasn’t appeared in an NHL game since 2022. He even made his way back to the Grand Canyon State, playing the past two seasons with the Tucson Roadrunners.

4. Phil Kessel

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Manifesting one of the more interesting career arcs in the NHL over the past decade or so, Kessel found himself in Arizona late in his career, coming aboard before the 2019-20 season. By this stage, the Wisconsin native had already won a pair of Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins, but still had his eyes set on breaking the league’s iron man record of 964 consecutive games at the time. While most were focused on former Coyote defenseman Keith Yandle’s simultaneous chase for the new record, Kessel was trailing not far behind. Yandle ultimately broke the record first midway through the 2021-22 season, but crucially Kessel never missed a game during his time with Arizona. As Yandle was eventually scratched from the lineup near the end of the regular season, Kessel was in prime position to surpass his mark of 989 straight games.

While this didn’t happen while with the Coyotes, Kessel’s 208 games played with the team allowed him to take the record for himself as a member of the Vegas Golden Knights less than a year after Yandle did so. Iron man streak aside, Kessel was a solid contributor to the team, most prominently in the 2020-21 season where he added 20 goals and 23 assists in the shortened 56-game season. His final year as a Coyote saw him post quite the crazy stat line, getting eight goals and 44 assists as it is rare for a forward to see that many assists alongside a single-digit goal total.

Technically, Kessel’s iron man streak is still ongoing despite not playing since 2023, as he has yet to formally announce his retirement. With Colorado Avalanche defenseman Brent Burns rapidly closing in on the record himself, it would still be possible for Kessel to end his hiatus and return to the NHL to extend his lead, but unfortunately the comeback won’t happen with the Coyotes. Still, his 1,064 consecutive games streak is safe for the time being, and I’m glad the Coyotes were a big part of making it happen.

3. Connor Murphy

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Another tie-in to the Blue Jackets organization, Murphy grew up in Columbus as his father, Gord, was an assistant coach for the team for seven seasons following his own lengthy NHL career. Connor followed in his dad’s footsteps and established himself as a potential big league defenseman, which the Coyotes took notice of. The team took Murphy in the first round of the 2011 draft, making him the first player on this list to come up after originally being drafted by the Coyotes.

Murphy had his first full NHL season in 2014-15, albeit a rough one with a -27 plus/minus rating in 73 games played along with committing 25 giveaways to just eight takeaways. However, he bounced back in the 2015-16 season with a +5 p/m in 78 games played, being credited with over 20 minutes of average ice time per game, improving his takeaways to a total of 21 in the process. In 2016-17, Murphy crossed the 200-hit mark for the first and so far only time of his career while playing in 77 games. While he unfortunately wasn’t a Coyote for very long, being traded to the Chicago Blackhawks after that season and spending the bulk of his career there, it’s nonetheless cool to have a tangible link between my two favorite teams like that.

2. Mike Smith

Photo Credit: AZCentral

Here’s where the exception to the rule I was talking about at the start comes into play, as Smith comes up just short of reaching the three-season threshold as an Arizona Coyote. However, there’s no way I was going to do this without having Mike Smith included, and this list is more about sentimental value than the statistical aspect anyway. That aside, Smith came into the fold for the Coyotes back when they were still known as Phoenix, spending several seasons around the league as a backup previously. However, as soon as he got the starting job he had his breakthrough, scoring 38 wins and leading the team to their best postseason run in franchise history with an appearance in the 2012 Western Conference Finals. In 2013, Smith further cemented himself into Coyotes lore by becoming the 11^th goalie in NHL history to score a goal, and the first since 2002 to do so on a direct shot at an empty net.

Getting back to his time with Arizona post-2014, he was the starting netminder for 61 games in 2014-15 and put together a .904 save percentage, despite a record of 14 wins and 47 losses. At this point, it bears mentioning that Coyotes were never a very good team under the Arizona moniker, they were average at best and had some pretty ugly seasons, as was the case with 2014-15. If it were any other season, this year for Arizona would be more infamous, but this was also the season that the Sabres were pulling the most obvious tanking job in NHL history in trying to draft McDavid so the Coyotes’ season kind of slips under the radar. Anyway, Smith came into 2015-16 looking for a bounce back year, but just two months into the season, he went down with a leg injury that kept him out until mid-March. By the time Smith returned, the Coyotes were still on the fringes of making the playoffs. Smith actually played significantly better after coming back from the injury than before, collecting a .944 save percentage and 1.80 goals against average. While it wouldn’t be enough to get the Coyotes in the playoffs, Smith proved that he was back.

For 2016-17, Smith kept up the solid play from the season before, earning a .914 SV% over 55 games played. This finally netted him his first All-Star Game appearance, but only had 19 wins to show for it at the end of the year as Arizona finished well outside of the playoffs. The strong season also caught the eye of the Calgary Flames, who traded for Smith in the offseason, bringing his Coyotes tenure to an end. He went on to play several more years in the NHL and just like another one of my all-time favorite goalies, Braden Holtby, finished his career literally one win away from 300 career wins (sigh). But Smith established himself among the top goalies in the Coyotes history and I always loved seeing his various Wile E. Coyote masks as well.

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1. Shane Doan

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Who else was it going to be at the number one spot? Doan became one of the original Coyotes of the 1996-97 season after playing his rookie season in Winnipeg before the relocation to Phoenix. Looking at the stats from his first handful of seasons, it seems like he was called up to the majors too early, but hit his stride once the 2000s rolled around and never looked back, becoming an incredibly consistent 25-30 goal scorer for the team.

Fast-forwarding to the Arizona name change, Doan had been the team captain since the 2003-04 season, but at age 38 was showing signs of slowing down as he had 14 goals and 22 assists in 2014-15, but still played nearly the entire schedule at 79 games. As pointed out earlier, the Coyotes were near the bottom of the standings that year, but Doan was a big part of the 2015-16 rebound as he collected 28 goals and 19 assists in 72 games as the team was in the postseason conversation for much of the season. This included the final hat trick of his career on December 29^th against the Blackhawks, fittingly taking place on home ice and enabling him to tie Dale Hawerchuk for the most career goals in franchise history (including the original Winnipeg Jets).

While Doan was unable to sustain this momentum into 2016-17, he was still able to achieve the rare feat of playing a full season at the NHL level at age 40 or older. After retiring that offseason, Doan quickly picked up a front office role with the Coyotes and his #19 jersey was officially retired by the team in 2019. While I only really caught the tail end of his career, his impact on the organization was nonetheless palpable and it was also awesome to see his son, Josh, make his NHL debut with Arizona in their final season, as well as score a hat trick with them in the preseason.

Thanks for reading, as I said this article was a bit of an experiment but was intriguing to think about. Probably the toughest cut from the list was Liam O’Brien, had he played longer with Arizona he would’ve been on it for sure but I was already pushing it with the Smith pick. You can go ahead and pencil him in as my unofficial #6 pick. I’m certainly rooting for the Coyotes to make a comeback and they will immediately reclaim their spot as my second-favorite team if they do return to the NHL, but until then we have their spiritual successor in the Mammoth and they have a pretty nice jersey too.