Coyotes Share Unusually Candid Statement Addressing Rumored Salt Lake City Move

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The Arizona Coyotes have dealt with an impressive amount of turmoil since setting up shop in the state in 1996, and it seems like they might not be there for much longer as rumors swirl concerning a potential move to Salt Lake City.

Its ownership group has been largely silent on that particular matter as speculation has grown over the past week, but we were treated to an unexpectedly blunt assessment of the situation on Thursday.

The NHL has spent close to 30 years doing everything in its power to set the Arizona Coyotes up for success, but the franchise has spent decades struggling to find its footing thanks to the financial issues that have resulted in the team changing hands seven times since moving from Winnipeg to Phoenix in the mid-1990s.

There was obviously hope they’d be able to turn things around when Alex Merulo became the newest majority owner in 2019, but that has not been the case during a tenure defined by the arena issues that forced the Coyotes to relocate to the 4,600-seat venue they share with Arizona State’s hockey team.

As things currently stand, Merulo is hoping to build a new complex on a 100-acre plot north of Phoenix that will be going up for auction at the end of June in what has become a last-ditch effort to keep the team in Arizona. However, things took a very interesting turn earlier this week when reporters across the hockey world asserted there was already a growing movement to relocate the team to Salt Lake City.

According to a Daily Faceoff report, the NHL is already working on multiple schedules to prepare for the possibility of the Coyotes playing in Utah next season. It’s also reportedly discussing a deal that would see the league buy the franchise from Merulo for $1 billion before flipping it to current Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith for $1.3 billion while sharing the profits with other teams.

The Coyotes only fueled the legitimacy of those rumors by declining to address the potential move when they began to swirl, but on Thursday, they seemingly broke their silence when a candid message credited to its ownership popped up on the team’s Instagram Story.

The message in question was originally posted by Coyotes Central before appearing on one of the team’s official social media platforms, but it would appear someone within the organization felt it was worth spreading via a slightly more authoritative channel.

There’s currently no firm timeline for a decision concerning Arizona’s future, but it sure seems like a ruling is going to come sooner rather than later.