[PepsiFree]

To be honest, I didn’t follow Maloney too closely, so hearing this I went and looked up his time with the Coyotes. There were a couple interesting articles about him building through the draft and finding some diamonds in the rough. One article specifically mentions him getting fired because of him wanting to stay the course and keep building while new owners wanted to fast-track things. It also mentioned him and Tippet butting heads. Then, there was another article with quotes from ownership suggesting they wanted Maloney to spend on big ticket free agents but he wouldn’t “there was money available but he didn’t spend it in the way we wanted” and the same owners praising Chayka (we know how that turned out).

I wonder if this might be a good thing. The Coyotes have one playoff berth since he left and Maloney got them to the Conference Final, so it terms of their success… it’s really been all his, and you could argue that they’ve just gotten worse since he left.

Maybe there’s also the possibility that he’s not looking to butt heads and get into a power struggle with a coach again, so either Darryl and he are aligned, or Darryl is out.

Just thinking out loud mostly. I don’t know. I’m ready to be pleasantly surprised.