NHL: Each franchise’s best team ever

NHL: Each franchise’s best team ever: 2011-12 Phoenix Coyotes

Since moving from Winnipeg, the Arizona Coyotes have been mostly a laughing stock in the NHL. From a lack of attendance because they don’t actually play in Phoenix, to a lot of fans paying way too much attention to town halls, to this season when the GM literally walked out on a team that was about to lose a bevy of draft picks because, ironically, they didn’t follow the rules on how to scout draft picks. This team has been a mess since 1997, but that doesn’t mean the franchise is without its high notes.

While there aren’t any Stanley Cup Championships, there are some fun runs. Unfortunately, a lot of those runs ended early. The Coyotes have one official playoff series win (the play-in round from last year doesn’t count). It was also the only year the Coyotes won the Pacific Division.

The run the Coyotes made to the 2012 Western Conference Finals was incredibly fun, especially since it finished with a collision course with the equally fun Los Angeles Kings (who were the eighth seed at the time).

There was just a lot of grit and grind on this team. Ray Whitney was the top scorer in the regular season. Shane Doan and Radim Vrbata were important pieces of the offense. It was just a very strange team, but they won. Oliver Ekman-Larsson joined the squad as a 20-year-old, and Keith Yandle made a formidable duo on the blue line.

This team was all about the goalie. Mike Smith took over for Ilya Bryzgalov after he was traded to the Flyers. Smith ended up being much, much better. Let’s skip right ahead to the playoffs. Smith put up a .944 save percentage in 16 games. In those 16 games, he had 14 quality starts. He had a 13.3 goals-saved above average. Again, that was in 16 games. Did you know that Mike Smith is the all-time leader in playoff save percentage? It’s because of this incredible run.