Coyotes Learn to Love the Limbo

For dead men walking--in the professional sense, anyway--Taylor Burke and Bobby Smith are remarkably cheerful.

Burke, the Phoenix Coyotes’ assistant general manager and son of owner Richard Burke, is philosophical about being fired after the franchise is sold to a group led by Wayne Gretzky and developer Steve Ellman.

And Smith, the general manager, long ago made peace with the idea that someone else will get the credit if the team he helped shape realizes its immense promise under different management.

Entangled in a process complicated by finances and politics, Burke and Smith are making the best of an awkward situation. Like their team, which takes a 7-0-4 streak into its game against the Kings tonight at Staples Center, Burke and Smith are staying above a sometimes-ugly fray.

“It’s been going on for a long time, and everyone has found a way to put it aside and go about their jobs,” Burke said. “The guys in the locker room have done a fantastic job [of] not making it a distraction.

“This has been going on since June, and if you don’t find a way to put it aside, it would drive you crazy.”

Smith has been to crazy and back.

Since April, when Richard Burke gave Ellman until June 30 to buy the club--a deadline later extended to Dec. 31 while Ellman assembles enough capital--Smith has had to look over his shoulder and look forward.

He has shared his knowledge with Cliff Fletcher, who was hired by Ellman and Gretzky as a consultant and will be a club executive after the sale is done, and he has faced disruptive rumors that Gretzky’s group will sign holdout goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin and free agent Claude Lemieux, and trade goalie Sean Burke and forward Keith Tkachuk.

Nevermind that Sean Burke was the NHL’s player of the month in October, or that Tkachuk has been instrumental in the Coyotes’ excellent start. Or that even under new ownership, the Coyotes aren’t guaranteed financial stability and the resources to sign high-profile free agents for a while, if ever.

Like Taylor Burke, Smith has learned to ignore what he can and to simply keep moving forward.

“I expect they’ll change GMs when the sale goes through. That’s their prerogative,” Smith said. “It is strange, but I’ve kind of, not resigned myself to it, but accepted it. I’ve got a job to do.

“We had a productive off-season. We signed a couple of guys and signed some draft picks. I even had a couple of agents say, ‘Why are you digging in your heels? You won’t have to worry about this later.’ But I’m the one I have to satisfy. We’ve got mirrors in our house, and I’ve got to be able to look myself in the mirror.”

Two weeks ago, whispers were that the sale would happen any day. Gretzky said he hoped to have news by last Friday, but talks between Ellman and NHL executives didn’t nudge the transaction to completion. It could close this week, or not for several more weeks.

“It’s just taking a little longer than everybody thought,” said Gretzky, who originally was to give merely his name in exchange for equity in the franchise and a role in personnel decisions, but has invested more than $3 million to keep the deal alive. “It’s going to get done.”

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is eager to see that because he considers Phoenix an important market. And the area has warmly supported the Coyotes, who moved south from Winnipeg, Canada, in 1996 but took with them their habit of folding in the playoffs.

Locked into a bad lease at a building that wasn’t designed for hockey, the Coyotes have lost $15 million a year at America West Arena. Delays in the sale have pushed back construction on a new arena in Scottsdale, and even an immediate sale and groundbreaking in the next few months on the Los Arcos project would keep the Coyotes in Phoenix through 2003. The price for the project, which will include an arena, mall, shops and restaurants, was estimated at $535 million, but has climbed to $575 million.

Ellman, a Phoenix developer, agreed to pay $87 million for the Coyotes but has had difficulty amassing the money for the purchase and operating capital, leading him to seek investors at $1 million a share. He made his first $10-million payment to Burke 10 days late, and he refused several times to let the City Council examine his books to be sure he has the financial wherewithal to complete the project. He also wants the city to condemn some land near Los Arcos, but the city has refused.

Gretzky and Ellman agreed they wouldn’t intervene in the Coyotes’ operations until the sale is completed, but rumors about Gretzky’s plans continue to surface. Lemieux said last week he had agreed to a contract, at which Smith raised his eyebrows.

“I’m the only one authorized to negotiate contracts,” he said.

In an even more awkward situation, Gretzky was barred from the Coyotes’ locker room after an exhibition game, a bad PR move but made in accordance with the agreement he and Burke had reached.

“You’ve got to give the players a lot of credit for this record,” Smith said. “It’s just a realization that you can’t worry about things you can’t control.”

If the sale falls apart, the Coyotes might instead be sold and moved to Portland, Ore., which almost lured the Penguins from Pittsburgh until Mario Lemieux rescued his old team from bankruptcy. There’s also no guarantee Gretzky’s group will be able to sign Khabibulin, whose $3-million-plus asking price looks increasingly unreasonable because he hasn’t played in the NHL for more than a year and because Sean Burke is playing so well.

In the meantime, Tkachuk, Burke, Jeremy Roenick and their teammates soldier on, blinders firmly in place to block out sale talk and gossip.

“We’re trying to focus on the team, not on the sale, on how people are performing on the ice,” Roenick said. “You hear rumors. You hear the money is in and they’re ready to go, but when it happens, it happens. Hopefully by then, we’ll be four or five games up on the next team behind us in the division.”

If they are, it will be Sean Burke who lifts them there--the same Burke who may be traded when Gretzky and Co. take over. Like Smith and Taylor Burke, Sean Burke can only smile at the absurdity of it all.

“I knew coming into this situation I was going to have to deal with it,” Burke said of the Khabibulin rumors. “I’ve played long enough that I can block these kinds of things out. I don’t know any other way to play.

“There’s nothing I can do except play. I hope I make their decision so tough it makes them crazy.”