Can the Arizona Coyotes make one final Pacific Division run?

Can the Arizona Coyotes make one final Pacific Division playoff run?

Since officially turning in their blue and green Winnepeg Jets sweaters for the red, green, and black threads – and more geographically appropriate mascot – the Arizona Coyotes have been one of the more consistently average teams in the NHL.

Outside of a single season in 2011-12 where the team looked like legit contenders to challenge for the Stanely Cup after finishing out the regular season in the Western Conference one seed, the team has remained a reliable four-to-six seed who can occasionally make it to the playoffs but never out of the Conference Quarter-Finals.

Then again, if you remove the ‘Wayne Gretsky-years‘ from the books, the Coyotes also haven’t been downright bad enough to justify a ground-up rebuild either, leaving the team in a weird NHL no man’s land that too many teams find themselves in but very few want to admit.

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In a weird twist of fate, the new Winnepeg Jets and the old Winnepeg Jets have the same number of Conference Finals appearances – a thought that would have been near-unimaginable when the team was stringing off playoff berths from 1995-2000 if for no other reason than that the new Winnepeg Jets didn’t come into existence until 2012.

But the 2020-21 season is something different. Not because the Coyotes are projected to be particularly good or anything – ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski lists the Coyotes as having ‘a rough offseason‘ – but because it’s (probably) the final time Arizona will be a member of the Pacific Division.

That’s right, with the NHL officially set to expand its ranks to 32 teams for the 2021-22 season, the Coyotes will be moving over to the Western Conference’s Central Division; the division they initially occupied from 1996-98.

Sidebar: In theory, I guess the Arizona Coyotes may not be playing in the real Pacific Division in 2020-21, as there have been extensive talks about re-aligning the league to accommodate a Canada-only division in the forthcoming season, but for the point of argument, let’s just assume things are copacetic.

That means moving forward, we won’t get nearly as many Kings-Coyotes showdowns, and in their place, Arizona will have to create new rivalries with Colorado Avalanche, the Minnesota Wild, and even the new Winnipeg Jets.

Hm… I wonder which one will be the team’s biggest rival?

With that being said, there are only three teams who are borderline guaranteed to represent the Pacific Division in the Stanley Cup playoffs this season in the Vegas Golden Knights, the Edmonton Oilers, and the Calgary Flames. Though a team like the San Jose Sharks, the Anaheim Ducks, or the Los Angeles Kings could surprise hockey fans the world over and make an improbable run for the fourth seed, it would appear the Coyotes and the Vancouver Canucks are going to be locked into an all-out war for the fourth seed one final time.

Even with a rough offseason, that’s a matchup the Coyotes will surely get up for regardless of the season’s length and composition.

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Even with Taylor Hall now a member of the Buffalo Sabres, the Coyotes still have a ton of quality young players like Christian Dvorak, Clayton Keller, and Nick Schmaltz who could conceivably take a step forward and into their own with an expanded workload. Is that enough to challenge the Golden Knights for a spot atop the Pacific Division? Eh, probably not, but it could certainly bring the team back to the NHL Conference Quarter-Finals for the 10th time in the franchise’s 25 year history. If that’s how the Arizona Coyotes’ tenure in the Pacific Division ends, it’d be a pretty fitting one.

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