The Coyotes 23 man roster has been set for the start of season.
Hockey is officially set to return tonight, with the Pittsburgh Penguins taking on the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first game of the 2021-22 regular season. And although the Arizona Coyotes won’t be playing until Thursday when they start their season against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the opening night roster has been solidified.
️ IT’S HERE!
Our 23-man Opening Night roster: https://t.co/VD6CYgRg3W
— Arizona Coyotes (@ArizonaCoyotes) October 12, 2021
The Coyotes have Jay Beagle, Travis Boyd, Lawson Crouse, Ryan Dzingel, Loui Eriksson, Christian Fischer, Dmitrij Jaskin, Clayton Keller, Phil Kessel, Andrew Ladd, Johan Larsson, Liam O’Brien, Antoine Roussel, and Nick Schmaltz listed as their opening night forwards.
To start the season the Coyotes will have Jakob Chychrun, Shayne Gostisbehere, Ilya Lyubushkin, Vladislav Provolnev, Victor Söderström, Anton Strålman, and Conor Timmins.
In net, the Coyotes will have the veteran Carter Hutton being backed up by Czech netminder Karel Vejmelka.
The Coyotes also have two players currently listed on LTIR, defenseman Kyle Capobianco and forward Alex Galchenyuk. However, it is presently unknown when either player will be available.
During the offseason, the Arizona Coyotes front office and General Manager Bill Armstrong made a concerted effort to blow up the team to jump-start the rebuild. As a result, only nine players in the Coyotes organization last season will be on the roster for opening night.
Only seven of the 23 players on the Coyotes’ roster for opening night are signed with the team past this season. This may be their final season for a few players, but for many others, this is a chance to prove that they still have more to contribute. The Coyotes probably won’t be good next season, but they will be hungry, hopefully making for entertaining hockey.