The last time the Arizona Coyotes made the NHL’s Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Tucson Roadrunners were pretty darn good, too — to the tune of a division title in the eventual COVID-19-shortened 2019-20 campaign.
That was four seemingly long seasons ago, although history — on the ice, notably — may be repeating itself in 2023-24.
Heading into this weekend’s action across the NHL and AHL maps, the upstart Coyotes and their top developmental affiliate in Tucson are among the better NHL/AHL combos this season.
How good? For one, their combined win percentage is just a hair shy of 60% entering Friday’s action — not bad for an NHL club still firmly entrenched in a multi-year rebuild under general manager Bill Armstrong and staff, with on-ice results presenting as if they’re ahead of schedule.
It’s not shabby for the Roadrunners, either — a unit that started the season playing stout defense, yet needed a few weeks to figure out how to score the puck; now they’re doing the latter in spades, dropping five or more goals in four of their last seven outings.
That win percentage — a more specific 59.65% via a combined record of 32-21-4 — is tied for ninth-best among the 31 NHL/AHL partnerships (or 32 if you count the loose interaction this season between the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes and AHL’s Chicago Wolves).
Tucson Roadrunners coach Steve Potvin said the baseline of progress for both teams goes back to the personnel moves made in recent years by the NHL club’s front office; that includes Armstrong and Roadrunners general manager John Ferguson (an assistant GM for the Coyotes, too, as part of his dual role).
“The choices they make with the types of players they’re bringing in — and what the suggested standard is,” Potvin said, “it’s working.”
Four years and a few weeks ago, in late November 2019, the Roadrunners — en route to the de facto AHL Pacific Division championship in that 2019-20 pandemic-impacted season — and the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoff-bound Coyotes actually topped this same list, if only for a couple fleeting moments.
This year, to date, the NHL’s New York Rangers and their AHL partners, the Hartford Wolf Pack, are the No. 1 combo. They’ve earned 72.73% of their available points with a combined 37-12-6 record.
The Washington Capitals (Hershey Bears), Dallas Stars (Texas Stars), Vancouver Canucks (Abbotsford Canucks), Los Angeles Kings (Ontario Reign), Vegas Golden Knights (Henderson Silver Knights), Boston Bruins (Providence Bruins) and Toronto Maple Leafs (Toronto Marlies) sit ahead of the Arizona/Tucson combo on such a list; the Coyotes/Roadrunners are tied with the Colorado Avalanche and Colorado Eagles in ninth.
It’s not a given that NHL and AHL teams peak at the same time, although it can happen.
Last season, the Coachella Valley Firebirds made the Calder Cup Finals in their inaugural season, while their NHL affiliate, the Seattle Kraken, reached the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But the team that defeated Coachella Valley, eventual AHL champion Hershey, saw their NHL counterpart in Washington miss the NHL’s postseason altogether.
On the flip, Stanley Cup champion Vegas won its first title on the pads of former Roadrunners and Coyotes goaltender Adin Hill, but the Golden Knights’ AHL affiliate in Henderson missed the AHL’s bracket, finishing with the league’s second-worst overall record.
Successful synergy does, however, appear to be happening present day in both Tempe and Tucson.
The Coyotes have won four straight entering the weekend to improve to 17-13-2; they’re in fifth place in the NHL’s Central Division, six points back of the division-leading Dallas Stars while holding on to one of the Western Conference’s two Wild Card spots.
That traction has been supported by the play of a number of former Roadrunners, including Michael Carcone and Lawson Crouse (the pair are tied for a team-high 14 goals), Matias Maccelli (second on the club with 24 points), a recent game-winning-goal hero in defenseman Michael Kesselring and playmaking blueliner JJ Moser (tied for the team lead in points among defensemen with 15).
Down Interstate 10, the Roadrunners have been even better.
Tucson is 8-3-1-0 in its last 12 games, thanks in part to eventual Coyotes like Josh Doan (his team-high 11 goals are tied for 15th out of 884 non-goalies to skate in the AHL this season), once-and-inevitably-again Coyote Dylan Guenther (a team-high 20 points in 24 appearances) and North American rookie Aku Räty. Räty recorded his first AHL hat trick on a four-point night as Tucson defeated the San Jose Barracuda Wednesday, 8-6.
The Roadrunners are now up to 15-8-1-1 on the year —that’s the seventh-best overall record, league-wide — and with a win or two and the right kind of puck luck elsewhere, Tucson may just be sitting in first place in the AHL’s Pacific Division come Christmas Eve.
Potvin said, from his vantage point, it’s not a coincidence that as the Coyotes go, so do the Roadrunners (or, perhaps, vice versa).
“I think subconsciously, somehow, it makes our team a little hungrier, or to stay as focused, and for guys to stay with the standard when you see the big club is doing certain things well,” he said of seeing the Coyotes succeed like they have been of late. “It adds some pressure sometimes on our staff and our players to keep performing the right way because the standard is high.”
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