NHL drafting contingency plan if Coyotes relocate before next season

The NHL is preparing a contingency plan in the event the Arizona Coyotes relocate to Salt Lake City as soon as this offseason, Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff reports.

Multiple sources indicate the league is drafting two different schedule matrices for next season, one with the Yotes remaining in Tempe’s Mullett Arena and the other with the franchise moving to the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Seravalli says. 

Relocation is a less likely outcome after the plot of land the Coyotes intend to use for a new arena and entertainment district in north Phoenix was officially listed for auction last week, but Seravalli reports majority owner Alex Meruelo is “intimately involved” in a backup plan that would sell control of the franchise to Ryan Smith, majority owner of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, before the June 27 land auction.

Per Seravalli, the Smith Entertainment Group would spend over $1.2B to acquire the franchise, including a relocation fee distributed to the league’s other 31 owners. 

Meruelo could still get paid for his majority stake at a valuation north of $1B after purchasing the franchise at a valuation of $300M in 2019, a figure Arizona Sports’ John Gambadoro reported last week that Meruelo was seeking in preliminary discussions to sell the club.

However, if no sale is announced before the end of May, that’s a nearly surefire sign that the Yotes will remain at the 4,600-capacity Tempe venue for 2024-25. 

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly has said that “waiting until a June land auction date would likely ensure the Coyotes will play at least one more season at Mullett Arena.”

Even in the overwhelmingly likely event that Meruelo wins the June land auction, that’s not a guarantee this franchise remains in Arizona past next season, Seravalli says. 

The Phoenix area won’t be without an NHL club for long, though, as indicated repeatedly by the league in recent months. Sources said to Seravalli that part of an agreement to sell the team “could include language that would allow Meruelo to ‘reactivate’ the Coyotes franchise in future years, including name and trademarks, if a new arena is built and terms and conditions of the agreement with the NHL are met.” 

That would pave the way for the Coyotes to start fresh with an expansion draft after the development is built, perhaps bringing hockey back to Arizona before the end of the decade.

All indications point to Meruelo’s (and the league’s) preference to bypass relocation altogether, keeping the team at Mullett until the proposed new arena is finished, which would likely be for the 2027-28 season. 

That would also leave Salt Lake City open as an expansion market rather than a relocation one, a more financially lucrative option for owners.