Leading OFF
Trading Doan would be mistake for Coyotes
Too late. Shane Doan can’t change sweaters, and he can’t change teams. Even if he accepts a trade and hoists the Stanley Cup, the ending will be all wrong.
It will be the same as trying to drink from an empty champagne bottle.
Fans in the Phoenix area have learned this from Randy Johnson, who was incensed when the Arizona Diamondbacks declined his offer to halve his salary. The team only wanted to pay his market value as a pitcher and not a pillar of the organization. Johnson won his 300th game as a member of the San Francisco Giants, in the first game of a soggy doubleheader, before a sparse crowd that had no vested interest or context.
That moment should have belonged to Arizona. The same applies to Doan’s final triumph, which is not winning the championship that has eluded him for 21 seasons. It’s the eternal love he will feel from hockey fans in Arizona on the night he plays his final NHL game in Glendale.
That moment also belongs to Arizona.
Doan said he hadn’t talked to management and told it that he’d waive his no-movement clause but he hasn’t ruled out the scenario.
“I never said that I wouldn’t go anywhere,” he said. “(But) that’s never been the plan. I’ve always kind of wanted to stay here. If there was ever an opportunity or whatever, the Coyotes have always been incredible to me and respectful to me in every way to be honest with me.
“I’ve talked about it with my family to make a decision on it if it was going to come up, but it’d have to be so perfect and so right. That’s pretty hard for it all to line up perfectly. It’d have to be exactly perfect, and that just doesn’t happen in our sport too often.”
Doan is obviously unhappy with the Coyotes. His willingness to leave the organization under the right circumstance should be a distress signal to diehard fans who have followed this team through gambling scandals, bankruptcy and five seasons without a playoff berth. It represents the first stain on the résumé of coach Dave Tippett, a man who has sustained a golden reputation in the Valley despite one fruitful postseason run in eight years.
Doan has always raved about his coach, but Tippett is now executive vice president of hockey operations and deeply involved in personnel matters. This is his show, with his vision supplemented by analytics ace John Chayka, the youngest general manager in sports.
This means Tippett was behind or on board with the 50% pay cut offered to Doan after the team captain scored 28 goals while earning $4.5 million in 2015-16. Throw in Doan’s diminished role, ice time and presence on the power play in 2016-17, and you have all the ingredients for an untimely divorce.
Tippett bears some accountability. He remains one of the most respected leaders in hockey, and his loyalty to the Coyotes pales only to the allegiance of Doan. He deserved his promotion, along with the time required to build a better future for the Coyotes.
But here’s the downside: A head coach needs to be buffered from financial decisions. The bad feelings that arise during contract negotiations can’t invade the dressing room. Players must trust their leader, especially a captain like Doan, whose commitment and accountability are beyond reproach.
If he doesn’t believe in the new regime, what does that say to the rest of us? Or to the players who sense the frustrations of a seasoned captain?
The Coyotes are one of the worst teams in the NHL. Their young players have not progressed as anticipated. Max Domi broke his hand during a fight, engaging in an activity that should have been strictly forbidden by Tippett.
The Coyotes also needed the cold-hearted churn of analytics. After overpaying Mike Smith, the team was financially bound to the wrong goaltender, eventually trading Devan Dubnyk to the Minnesota Wild for a third-round pick.
They haven’t fared well in free agency. And Doan’s performance in 2016-17 has left much to be desired, a 40-year-old struggling to keep up in a league with a new premium on skating, a sport that is growing faster by the year.
It’s easy to feel empathy for Doan, who hit two significant milestones this season, scoring his 400th goal and playing in his 1,500th game. Yet he has only played in 55 postseason contests, and none of those playoff runs ended well.
He was part of that awful Game 7 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues in 1999, the night Jeremy Roenick took the ice with a broken jaw. He was injured during an ill-fated playoff series vs. the Detroit Red Wings in 2010, scratched before Game 7 despite an emotional plea to Tippett. His only taste of success ended in a bitter rant toward NHL officials after being eliminated by the Los Angeles Kings in the 2011-12 Western Conference finals.
If Doan were to explore a trade, moving east likely wouldn’t bother Doan, he said, since he’d be gone for only a few months. But he does realize the ramifications of being away from his family.
“My kids are older,” Doan said. “Their lives are significant. The fact that things that are happening are very significant in their lives — my daughter will be graduating. My son is playing hockey. My other kids are getting older, too. You don’t want to miss those things.”
If Doan is seriously considering a trade after all these years, it’s probably an admission that this season will be his last. The gravitational pull of another playoff run, allowing him to compete in meaningful hockey games one more time, must be overwhelming.
But a championship just wouldn’t feel the same if Doan was playing for another organization, and the Coyotes should do whatever is necessary to ease his discontent in the coming months, giving him the fond farewell he deserves.
Doan has the rare opportunity to play an entire career for the same franchise, even if it spanned two countries. His reputation is built on an undying faith to the cause in Arizona, and his reputation in the Phoenix area exceeds his value as a hockey player. Ten years from now, that will mean more than two months on the fourth line of a Stanley Cup contender.
Doan needs to retire as a member of the Coyotes. He needs to set the standard for all future members of the organization, proving the never-ending fight was not in vain. His last NHL game needs to be an Arizona celebration, not a hollow triumph in another uniform, in a city that could never appreciate the true value of Captain Coyote.
Bickley writes for The (Phoenix) Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network. Contributing: Sarah McLellan.