Now Coyotes Have Game, Not Names

Before this season began, NHL fans around Phoenix laughed out loud when Cliff Fletcher, the Coyotes’ senior vice president of hockey operations, said his team would make the playoffs.

After all, the Coyotes had conducted a major overhaul, getting rid of top-salary stars such as Jeremy Roenick, Keith Tkachuk and Nikolai Khabibulin.

Now, with the playoffs less than three weeks away, Fletcher is looking like a prophet. The Coyotes are in the thick of the playoff race, in seventh place in the Western Conference with a 34-24-9-5 record.

“I feel much better about the franchise now,” said Stephen Weeks, a Coyote season-ticket holder since the team moved from Winnipeg to Phoenix in 1996. “We used to have people like Roenick and other big-name players and that was good when the franchise originally started because we needed name players to get fans into the arena.

“But the people who have stayed with this team are real fans, and they understand hockey. They want to see wins and see the Coyotes go deep into the playoffs. We’ve never gotten past the first round.”

True. The Roenick-Tkachuk era did produce three 90-point seasons, but no playoff advancement. When new ownership brought in Wayne Gretzky as managing partner last year, the Coyotes were hurting. The team had a payroll of $38 million and was upside down in debt. Thus, the facelift.

Led by Coach Bobby Francis and goaltender Sean Burke, the new-look Coyotes have not only proved critics wrong but have become one of the league’s hottest teams, going 9-2-1-1 since the Olympic break.

It’s really hard not to like the blue-collar Coyotes.

“Early in the year, it was slow and we were having some small crowds,” said Burke, a journeyman goalie who has found a home in Phoenix. “But things are different now.

“Our fans get excited about good hockey. Obviously, winning is what they come to see, but they appreciate the effort more than anything. The best thing about our team is that we give good effort every night.”

One person who’s not surprised is Roenick.

“They have a workhorse mentality,” said Roenick, who signed as a free agent last summer with Philadelphia but still owns a home in the Phoenix area. “They go out and absolutely bust their [butts] every night and get in your face. They finish their checks, and they play a good system. [Francis] is a great coach, and he’s doing a lot to keep them motivated.”

The Coyotes, who will play the Mighty Ducks in a back-to-back set starting Wednesday, may not have lots of big-name players but they do have talent. Daymond Langkow, who left Philadelphia the same day the Flyers signed Roenick, leads the team in scoring; and Daniel Briere is one of the league’s up-and-coming players. Captain Teppo Numminen spearheads the Coyotes’ defense, which is on pace to give up fewer than 200 goals for only the second time in the franchise’s 23-year history.

“We’re here to stay,” Francis said after his team completed a 2-0-3 season series against the Kings with a 4-0 victory on Sunday. “We’ve proven that all season.”

Which hasn’t gone unnoticed by Coyote fans.

“Wayne Gretzky has put together a good foundation for a team, [rather than] a team of individuals,” Weeks said. “We have a team now.... Phoenix likes a winner, just like anywhere else.”

With the Coyotes scheduled to move into a new arena in suburban Glendale before the 2003-04 season, things are looking up for a franchise that was on shaky ground 18 months ago.

“Phoenix may never be a true hockey city, in the sense that guys are recognized everywhere they go because people live and die with the sport,” Burke said. “But there is a core group of people here who really support hockey. They are knowledgeable about the game, and the situation is only going to get healthier and healthier.”

Damage Control

The NHL has been in damage-control mode since spectator Brittanie Cecil died last week, two days before her 14th birthday, after being struck by a puck at a game.

The league, formed in 1917, had not previously had a a puck-related fatality. Cecil was hit in the head by a deflected shot by Columbus center Espen Knutsen in a game between the Blue Jackets and Calgary at Nationwide Arena on March 16.

Initially, coaches and players agreed that something had to be done to prevent another such death. They talked about how, in Europe, there’s a protective netting from the top of the glass to a reasonable height toward the rafters.

But when Philadelphia’s Bobby Clarke and the Kings’ Andy Murray basically said that they were shocked that it took 85 years before someone died of a puck-related injury, the NHL hardly came off as a league on the cutting edge.

Here’s hoping the league is working on plans to copy international hockey’s protective netting. It can’t happen fast enough.

Line Shifts

* Who could blame Colorado forward Peter Forsberg for wanting to get back on the ice after watching the Avalanche get handled by Washington, Detroit and the Kings last week.

Forsberg plans to skate for about 10 minutes on Thursday, his first ice time since surgery for a torn tendon in his left foot on Jan. 10. Forsberg was initially expected to be sidelined until at least May 10, which will be the middle of the playoffs if the Avalanche advances that far.

After picking up defenseman Darius Kasparaitis from Pittsburgh in the final hour before the league’s trade deadline, Colorado appeared ready to mount a staunch defense of its Stanley Cup championship. But the Avalanche didn’t look so tough being outscored by the Capitals, Red Wings and Kings, 8-1.

The Willie O’Ree All-Star youth weekend, in honor of the player who broke the NHL’s color barrier in 1958, is growing in attendance in the seventh year of the event. More than 4,200 watched the all-star game, which matched 10- to 12-year-olds picked from O’Ree’s Diversity Task Force programs across the country. The previous best attendance was less than 1,000 for the event, which raises funds for the diversity task force.

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The Times’ Rankings

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