OT: The Alternative History Thread

[The Feckless Puck]

I have no idea if this thread idea will take off or fizzle out before it begins, but here goes.

We've been having a whole lot of "woulda, shoulda, coulda" thread hijacks lately, and since it seems like lots of folks are determined to try and prognosticate how things might have turned out had EVENT X happened/not happened, I thought I could make a thread that we could sticky and, every time someone gets tempted to say, "Well, we wouldn't be in this fix if Chayka had only resigned Vrbata," or "If Gretzky had just shown up to practices instead of letting Fuhr run them," or "What if the Los Arcos arena had been built?" they can come here and just run with it rather than sidetracking other discussions.

Anyway, mods, feel free to do what you will here.

Click to read more...

 

[Neighborhood Coyote]

WHAT IF... the Coyotes had won the draft lottery for Connor McDavid and/or Auston Matthews?!

 

[The Feckless Puck]

WHAT IF... the Coyotes had won the draft lottery for Connor McDavid and/or Auston Matthews?!

That's always a good one. I think the Oilers and the Sabres are showing that no team can turn things around completely by adding just one star player. I will always regret, though, not getting Matthews. I always said the second-best outcome would have been for Toronto to get him, and we've gotten a ton of good growth stories out of it for sure. But having Auston as a Coyote would have been amazing.

Then again, if Auston doesn't score four in his Leafs debut, does he still get labeled the Savior of the Future?

Pretty deep rabbit hole there.

 

[Mosby]

If we win McDavid, I think Maloney is still GM. No way he f***s up McDavid as bad as the Oilers have.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

If we win McDavid, I think Maloney is still GM. No way he ****s up McDavid as bad as the Oilers have.

I dunno, man. The Maloney thing transcended the roster - it was a power battle between him and Tippett/Drummond more than anything. I think he'd have been canned regardless.

It does make me curious what might have happened with the roster, though, had we gotten McDavid. Would ownership have found more cash to put together a good supporting cast or would they have expected McD to carry the whole weight of the team on his shoulders?

 

[Mosby]

If you add McDavid to the current Coyotes squad, are we better than the Oilers? There's your supporting cast.

Gotta think IceArizona would've marketed the hell out of McDavid. Everyone in this forum would have had an Arizona 97 McDavid jersey. The league probably would have helped in the marketing efforts too. There's no way the Coyotes get McDavid and then NHL doesn't do a ton of work on its own to help the Coyotes. Not after the 10 years of off-ice stuff.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

The league probably would have helped in the marketing efforts too.

They'd have had to, because IA's marketing budget was tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny.

 

[Sinurgy]

The Oilers screwed the Coyotes at the draft and then have screwed them ever since because the new draft rules were essentially put in place because of Edmonton's run on #1 picks. The real kicker is the f***ers will probably get it this year too.

 

[TheLegend]

I say had Dustin Brown got the 5 minute major and game misconduct he deserved for that deliberate knee on knee with Roszival we have a Cup banner hanging in the rafters.

 

[MIGs Dog]

That's always a good one. I think the Oilers and the Sabres are showing that no team can turn things around completely by adding just one star player. I will always regret, though, not getting Matthews. I always said the second-best outcome would have been for Toronto to get him, and we've gotten a ton of good growth stories out of it for sure. But having Auston as a Coyote would have been amazing.

Then again, if Auston doesn't score four in his Leafs debut, does he still get labeled the Savior of the Future?

Pretty deep rabbit hole there.

If Matthews doesn't bring a Cup to Toronto he'll be a bust to Leafs fans.

 

[ck26]

Alternative History Thread: the Germans don't violate Belgian neutrality in 1914, win World War I in four months. The Tsarist Empire never collapses, so there is no Soviet Union and no World War II. No post-Soviet hockey defections mean the 1990's Red Wings are never a superpower, because Joe Stalin is an obscure Georgian bumpkin and the serfs of the Russian Empire play bandy and -- at the desire of their new Prussian overlords -- soccer, not hockey. France is annexed and becomes a large potato farm, and Oktoberfest in Parisburg becomes a world-famous tradition. David Hasselhoff and Edith Piaf sing duets that change the world. A Belarusian serf named Gretzky never defects to Ameerika, and instead toils away at a tractor factory in Volgograd. Born under a full moon, his grandson Wladimir, whose small stature confines him to a lifetime of academic study and installing the little dashboard lights on the tractors. He excels at installing those little dashboard lights, and the tractor factory does good business, bankrupting Detroit and sending the aforementioned Red Wings fans scattering hither and yon in search of food. Young Wladimir Gretzky's uncanny skill for clearing discarded shreds of rubber from the assembly room floor with a wooden stick goes unappreciated, so those stupid, overrated "philosophical" platitudes are uttered in the Russian language so that we never have to hear them. Also he works at a tractor factory and nobody in Russia plays hockey so nobody cares they're just all "Wladimir, get back to work."

tl;dr ... Grant Fuhr practices are Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen's fault.

 

[Jamieh]

If Matthews doesn't bring a Cup to Toronto he'll be a bust to Leafs fans.

That's all alernative fact not alternate history.

 

[Neighborhood Coyote]

Yea, I've also pondered that. What would the Coyotes have done with a player like McDavid, or Matthews? Because there is still a possibility that the team could have ruined them somehow, too.

But on the good side, I would imagine the NHL would have been trying to cover AZ more with a McDavid here (especially if he was still as good as he is). And the local media (I hope) would have put more emphasis on the Yotes because of that.

Here is another.. what if Wheeler and Turris stayed?

 

[MIGs Dog]

Alternative History Thread: the Germans don't violate Belgian neutrality in 1914, win World War I in four months. The Tsarist Empire never collapses, so there is no Soviet Union and no World War II. No post-Soviet hockey defections mean the 1990's Red Wings are never a superpower, because Joe Stalin is an obscure Georgian bumpkin and the serfs of the Russian Empire play bandy and -- at the desire of their new Prussian overlords -- soccer, not hockey. France is annexed and becomes a large potato farm, and Oktoberfest in Parisburg becomes a world-famous tradition. David Hasselhoff and Edith Piaf sing duets that change the world. A Belarusian serf named Gretzky never defects to Ameerika, and instead toils away at a tractor factory in Volgograd. Born under a full moon, his grandson Wladimir, whose small stature confines him to a lifetime of academic study and installing the little dashboard lights on the tractors. He excels at installing those little dashboard lights, and the tractor factory does good business, bankrupting Detroit and sending the aforementioned Red Wings fans scattering hither and yon in search of food. Young Wladimir Gretzky's uncanny skill for clearing discarded shreds of rubber from the assembly room floor with a wooden stick goes unappreciated, so those stupid, overrated "philosophical" platitudes are uttered in the Russian language so that we never have to hear them. Also he works at a tractor factory and nobody in Russia plays hockey so nobody cares they're just all "Wladimir, get back to work."

tl;dr ... Grant Fuhr practices are Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen's fault.

...the Germans don't bomb Pearl Harbor...

 

[AZviaNJ]

Feckless as you described.....WHAT IF the Coyotes moved to Los Arcos as originally planned instead of Steve Ellman's ill-fated decision to go to Glendale?

 

[Matias Maccete]

Ck26 won, close it down.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

Feckless as you described.....WHAT IF the Coyotes moved to Los Arcos as originally planned instead of Steve Ellman's ill-fated decision to go to Glendale?

The key question there, I think, would have been ownership. Jerry Moyes was a minority partner in Ellman's ownership group who accepted controlling interest from Ellman when the team went to Glendale because he was a big west side guy. I doubt very much that Moyes would have had interest in taking that interest for a Los Arcos-centered situation; so you have to theorize who would have taken over from Ellman other than Moyes, or would they have just sold the team to Portland when the opportunity arose.

 

[TheLegend]

Problem with Ellman wasn’t as much between Los Arcos and Westgate as it was Ellman not being recession proof.

He would have had the same issues in either location.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

The key question there, I think, would have been ownership. Jerry Moyes was a minority partner in Ellman's ownership group who accepted controlling interest from Ellman when the team went to Glendale because he was a big west side guy. I doubt very much that Moyes would have had interest in taking that interest for a Los Arcos-centered situation; so you have to theorize who would have taken over from Ellman other than Moyes, or would they have just sold the team to Portland when the opportunity arose.

Well, that's all assuming the attendance was that bad at Los Arcos though, too...which... *ducks thrown object*

 

[7even]

Alternative History Thread: the Germans don't violate Belgian neutrality in 1914, win World War I in four months. The Tsarist Empire never collapses, so there is no Soviet Union and no World War II. No post-Soviet hockey defections mean the 1990's Red Wings are never a superpower, because Joe Stalin is an obscure Georgian bumpkin and the serfs of the Russian Empire play bandy and -- at the desire of their new Prussian overlords -- soccer, not hockey. France is annexed and becomes a large potato farm, and Oktoberfest in Parisburg becomes a world-famous tradition. David Hasselhoff and Edith Piaf sing duets that change the world. A Belarusian serf named Gretzky never defects to Ameerika, and instead toils away at a tractor factory in Volgograd. Born under a full moon, his grandson Wladimir, whose small stature confines him to a lifetime of academic study and installing the little dashboard lights on the tractors. He excels at installing those little dashboard lights, and the tractor factory does good business, bankrupting Detroit and sending the aforementioned Red Wings fans scattering hither and yon in search of food. Young Wladimir Gretzky's uncanny skill for clearing discarded shreds of rubber from the assembly room floor with a wooden stick goes unappreciated, so those stupid, overrated "philosophical" platitudes are uttered in the Russian language so that we never have to hear them. Also he works at a tractor factory and nobody in Russia plays hockey so nobody cares they're just all "Wladimir, get back to work."

tl;dr ... Grant Fuhr practices are Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen's fault.

Im f***ing crying

 

[The Feckless Puck]

Well, that's all assuming the attendance was that bad at Los Arcos though, too...which... *ducks thrown object*

That's my point, though - it wouldn't have been a question of attendance. Remember, Moyes saw great average attendance his first few years in Glendale. The trouble was, he didn't want to own the team no matter what. Its only utility for him was as a tax writeoff. He started asking the league for a replacement almost immediately after the team moved. So the question is, if Moyes wouldn't have bought out Ellman's controlling interest, who would have? I think we've seen over the years that there haven't been many interested parties among the super-wealthy out in Fountain Hills and those zipcodes to ride to the team's rescue.

 

[Dirty Old Man]

My other question would have been "what gets built around that big, lonely football stadium in the first 10 years?", especially considering what happened to the economy in that time...(or "what if the Coyotes go to Los Arcos, and the Cardinals never acquire Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald?")

 

[Mosby]

The Oilers screwed the Coyotes at the draft and then have screwed them ever since because the new draft rules were essentially put in place because of Edmonton's run on #1 picks. The real kicker is the ****ers will probably get it this year too.

I'm not convinced Dahlin fixes them either.

 

[RABBIT]

what if the Coyotes fans just consider Fischer to be our 3rd overall in 2015 and Strome as our #32nd overall pick...would we be less disappointed?

 

[SniperHF]

Coyotes win the Wings series if Doan doesn't get hurt even with Bryz being a basket case. After that I think Bryz still lets them down but it would be interesting. Also breaks the first round curse 2 years earlier which I imagine changes some things in terms of how they handle the offseasons.

what if the Coyotes fans just consider Fischer to be our 3rd overall in 2015 and Strome as our #32nd overall pick...would we be less disappointed?

Are we disappointed because Strome busts at some point or because no McEichel? I think the answer is no either way.

Assuming Merkley and Hill bust, which is a solid assumption for picks after 20-25 or so, the Coyotes can't come out of tank season part 1 with only one useful player from the draft.