The Coyotes have completed their foray into free agency with the singings of Doug Weight, Mark Recchi, and Andreas Lilja. Terms of the contracts are outlined below:
Doug Weight: 1 year at 4 Million + SB
Mark Recchi: 1 year at 4.6 Million + SB
Andreas Lilja 1 year at 1 Million + SB
After letting it slip that they were after a top 6 LW in free agency the Coyotes have indeed landed FA forward Mark Recchi. Coming as more of a surprise are the signings of Doug Weight and Andreas Lilja. The Recchi signing was most logical for the 'Yotes as they needed the LW to round out their top 6 forwards. On the other hand, it's not immedieatly clear how Doug Weight will fit into the lineup. Similarily, it's unclear where Lilja fits into an already very deep Coyotes defense core. Clearly there is plenty of speculation that the Coyotes intend to make a few trades between now and training camp to help balance out the lineup. Also of note, the Coyotes signed three farm players to 500k contracts.
As it stand now, the Coyotes lineup looks as follows:
It is believed that the Coyotes management would like to move out a few roster players in favour of picks, but what exactly the deals may be, and which players are involved remains to be seen.
