Arizona Coyotes: Clayton Keller leads exciting young team

Weaknesses

Scoring

The Coyotes have made some impressive strides, but last season, they were the second-worst scoring team in the NHL, with only the Buffalo Sabres trailing them. Only four of their players had at least 40 points, and one of them (Domi) got traded.

To win in the NHL, you need to put pucks in the net. Acquiring Galchenyuk should help, as should a full-time promotion for Strome. Grabner probably has another 20 goal season left in his tank. Keller should improve on last season’s impressive totals. But even with all of this, the Coyotes likely aren’t going to score too many goals.

Second And Third Pairings

Arizona needs to be better defensively. Finally addressing their goaltending should help. But ultimately, it starts with their second and third pairings. Jakub Chychrun and Niklas Hjalmarsson did well in 261 five-on-five minutes. At the very least, the former did far better with the latter than he did with Alex Goligoski.

Goligoski and Kevin Connauton or Jordan Oesterle could be a solid pairing. But do the Coyotes have the courage to put Goligoski on the third pairing, which, frankly, is where he belongs after last season? There’s a lot of promise in the Coyotes’ bottom two pairings, but there’s also quite a bit of uncertainty.

Power Play

Getting Galchenyuk should help improve the Coyotes power-play. But they were one of the worst units in the NHL last season, converting on just 16.87 percent of their chances. The Coyotes aren’t going to be an overwhelming team at five-on-five, so to make some noise, they’re going to have to do more damage on the power play.