Pay walled. What is this?
Allow me to help:
Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo might want to win, but he's showing he doesn't know how
www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nhl/coyotes/2020/07/24/arizona-coyotes-alex-meruelo-dinner-without-john-chayka-shows-dysfunction/5496065002/
A sense of optimism filled the large room at Gila River Arena last Aug. 1 when Alex Meruelo was introduced as the Coyotes' new majority owner.
Finally, it seemed as though the Coyotes had an owner with money.
Finally, we would get to see what Coyotes President of Hockey Operations and General Manager John Chayka could do with a fattened budget, not one so thin that it was held up by both a belt and suspenders.
Finally, maybe the Coyotes had an owner who could make hockey work in the Valley.
A year later, here is where we are:
— Around half of the team’s employees have been on furlough since March. Many of those still on the job are unhappy and disillusioned, according to sources.
— Meruelo has said he has a couple of “extremely attractive” arena offers from undisclosed entities in the East Valley, which is hard to imagine given the economic impact of the pandemic.
— Chayka’s future with the team is in question after Meruelo, his son and Coyotes President and CEO Xavier Gutierrez met over dinner with forward Taylor Hall, a pending unrestricted free agent. Chayka was not invited and didn’t find out about the meeting until the next day, according to an NHL source with direct knowledge of the situation.
One version of events being propagated is that Chayka set up the meeting so Hall could get to know Meruelo, Alex Jr., and Gutierrez, who replaced predecessor Ahron Cohen in June.
“That’s a lie,” the source said.
Chayka has declined comment, but he must be wondering if his title — President of Hockey Operations and General Manager — means much anymore.
What’s bizarre is Meruelo’s apparent reluctance to step back and let Chayka work. Chayka, 31, is regarded as one of the top general managers in the NHL. And Meruelo and Chayka thought enough of each other that Chayka signed a contract extension in November that runs through 2024.
Chayka orchestrated the trade for Hall in December, a deal that would not have been made without Meruelo’s commitment to providing the capital necessary to negotiate a long-term contract for Hall.
Credit Meruelo for that. All seemed fine with the Coyotes then.
Something has clearly changed.
Chayka, after all, does have experience negotiating player contracts. Gutierrez, now apparently the point man in the Hall negotiations, does not.
It’s not unprecedented for owners and CEOs of sports franchises to become personally involved in negotiations. But it’s usually done with the knowledge and participation of the general manager.
Hall’s agent, Darren Ferris, has not returned messages, and multiple sources now say Ferris was also absent from the dinner.
Chayka’s only response to the news of the dinner is to decline to “speak to rumors” and that’s he’s focused on Nashville, the Coyotes opponent in an upcoming best-of-five, play-in series.
But it’s fair to wonder what he’s thinking about not being invited to the dinner. How firm is his footing? And does he even want to work for an owner who doesn’t inform him of a contract meeting with a player?
And if Chayka were to leave, who would want the job given how Chayka was treated?
The timing of the Hall dinner is troubling, too. On Aug. 2, almost a year to the day after Meruelo's introduction, the Coyotes open the series against Nashville in Edmonton.
Most general managers and owners would not envision the days before the start of the postseason as a window take a star player to dinner and make him a contract offer. That offer, per the NHL source, was a “low ball" one.
There is nothing general managers, coaches and players fear more than a distraction, and possible discord over a contract certainly is that.
Perhaps Meruelo will soon learn that running a sports franchise is unlike operating any of his other businesses: casinos, restaurants, real-estate development and the like. Work around your general manager in those businesses, and it’s likely no one outside the building is going to care.
They do in professional sports.
Meruelo is new to this, and the pandemic has made his learning curve steeper. And lots of businesses run by rich people have furloughed workers over the past four months.
That's assuming, of course, that Meruelo is trying to learn the business.
Holding a dinner — and negotiating — with a player without your general manager’s knowledge runs counter to that notion. And it points to dysfunction in the organization that eventually will show up on the ice.
At his introductory press conference last August, Meruelo was flanked by Cohen and Chayka.
They were all smiles. A year later, much has changed.
Cohen left the team in May. “Mutually parted ways,” is how it was described.
Chayka remains on the job, but he has to be wondering about his job security, or if he wants to stay.
They, along with those of us in attendance last August, laughed when Meruelo said he “sure as shi- wants to win.”
That might be true. But what’s become clear after one year one on the job is that Meruelo doesn’t know how.
