He wasn't forced to sell. He was provided an opportunity to sell a portion of the franchise for ~3 times the perceived value of the entire franchise. He wasn't going to get a better deal than what the NHL offered him.
We do not know if he would have gotten another offer because no other potential buyers were notified and given an opportunity to submit an offer.
The league is constantly exploring other options privately. Years in advance. They already know what the appetite is in a place like QC with regards to price, ownership, and how the other owners feel about it. It's why Quebec doesn't have a team despite deserving one. The math isn't mathing. Winnipeg's downturn isn't helping matters.
Brother it's a professional hockey franchise, and a billion dollar one at that. The market is limited and the league controls all the relevant levers. We had an entire long ass court case to reaffirm that. I don't know what "ineptitude" you've actually seen.
Hard to show damages when you're talking purely hypotheticals AND you profited massively off of the transaction that did go through. Meruelo gave them this legal recourse with his behavior, any slight misgivings he has are irrelevant at that point. It's mostly just a massive hit to his outsized ego.
We have no idea if they had discussions with other investors and even if they did that is different than a marketed auction process by an independent third party. Additionally, AM was adament that he was not going to sell until the NHL forced him to, so any prior discussions the NHL had with potential investors, were tainted from the get go. Why would a potential investor submit an offer for a business that is not for sale?
Contrary to what you might believe, sports franchises sometimes are sold in auctions run by investment banks. They are typically private auctions and only include a small pool of potential buyers, but because the investment bank is independent, and they do reach out to multiple probable buyers, they can ensure it is a fair deal. The NHL forcing AM to sell the team to a friend of the chairman without approaching other buyers is not independent.
Just because AM made money does not mean he was not damaged. If a Houston investor group knew the Coyotes were for sale, and were willing to pay $2bn, he still got damaged. We will never know because the NHL did not look at any other options after they decided to force a sale through.
I do think the option was key to getting this deal through because they will argue AM still has the opportunity to own a team once the team meets NHL requirements. AM also was able to negotiate for and get something he wanted, which could be evidence against coercion on the deal. Where the NHL could run into issues is if they did not offer that option in good faith and plan/hope AM fails.