Coyotes Bring Back Stempniak

Word came down late on Sunday night that the Coyotes have re-signed unrestricted free agent forward Lee Stempniak to a new deal, which is reportedly for two years and will have a cap hit of $1.75 million per season, $3.5 million deal in total.  The deal does come a little late in the free agent season, but it was likely key for the Coyotes to wait until the heat was down before they gave Stempniak a new deal or else it likely would have cost a lot more.

The Coyotes turned what was a disappointing season for Stempniak in Toronto into a pretty good season after a trade deadline deal, giving the winger some new life and some new scoring streaks to go along with it.  In Toronto, Stempniak scored 30 points (14 goals and 16 assists) in 62 games for the Leafs, but once he moved to the desert, he picked up 18 points (14 goals and 4 assists)  in 18 games, turning him into an immediate fan favourite.  His re-insertion into the Coyotes line-up should be a good push for the team that could use some grit and scoring at the same time.  I'm not sure we should be expecting point-per-game numbers, but he should have a decent year.

Forwards	Defense	Goalies
Wojtek Wolski	Keith Yandle	Ilya Bryzgalov
Ray Whitney	Ed Jovanovski	Jason LaBarbera
Shane Doan	Derek Morris
Lee Stempniak	Adrian Aucoin
Radim Vrbata	Sami Lepisto
Scottie Upshall	Kurt Sauer
Vern Fiddler
Taylor Pyatt
Petr Prucha
Andrew Ebbett
Lauri Korpikoski
Mikkel Boedker

The Coyotes, in theory, could dress this 20-man roster and call it a team come October, but I think we all can see that there are a few bubble players that may or may not make it out of camp, but we'll wait for the professionals to decide that before anything.  This 20-man roster, plus three buyouts, checks in at an annual salary cap hit of $46.5 million, which clears the salary cap floor by a comfortable margin and there are still three more names the team could add, if they feel the need to.  I think we are all looking to see Kyle Turris, Brett MacLean and Oliver Ekman-Larsson perform in camp and take a likely spot on the roster.  All three of them will have decent cap hits to consider as well.

If Phoenix is going to add some more youth to this good skating club, then I would have to think that they would all have to be considered NHL-ready by the coaching staff, who wasn't going to have any of it last season, opting to go the more veteran route, which paid off with a playoff appearance in 2010 and obviously wants to be repeated in 2011.  There have been a few changes to the team already, but with a solid goaltending tandem, a goal-scoring potential from the blueline and a lunch pail bunch of forwards, the Coyotes should be able to make a solid push.