When we asked our college football reporters to rank the sport’s top 10 coaches, we figured there wouldn’t be much debate about who is No. 1 — and there wasn’t. Georgia’s Kirby Smart, whose Bulldogs are 42-2 over the past three seasons, was the unanimous pick among our 10 voters.

But after that, there was very little consensus.

The only other coach to appear on all 10 ballots was new Alabama head man Kalen DeBoer, but his rankings ranged from second to 10th.

Two coaches appeared on nine ballots: Utah’s Kyle Whittingham, whose rankings ranged from three second-place votes to two ninth places, and Florida State’s Mike Norvell, whose votes included two second places and two 10ths.

Then there’s Clemson’s Dabo Swinney, who received four second-place votes and was left off four ballots altogether.

With points assigned based on our reporters’ votes (10 points for first place, nine for second place and down to one point for 10th place), here are the complete rankings.

Also see: Surprises and snubs — top 10 coaches reaction

Other top 10s: Receivers | RBs | QBs | Pass-rushers | DBs

1. Kirby Smart, Georgia

2023 record: 13-1 (.929)
Career record: 94-16 (.855)
Points: 100 (all 10 first-place votes)

With Nick Saban retired, Smart is unquestionably the preeminent coach in college football. He took his alma mater, Georgia, to back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022 and played for a third national title in 2017. The Bulldogs won an SEC-record 29 straight games before losing to Alabama last season in the SEC championship game. In eight seasons at Georgia, Smart has built a juggernaut in terms of evaluating, recruiting and developing great players. He has produced 55 NFL draft picks, including 15 first-rounders, and could have as many as 10 more players selected in the upcoming draft.

Smart is unbeaten against all active coaches over the past five seasons — his only losses in that span are to Saban (3), Dan Mullen at Florida, Ed Orgeron at LSU and Will Muschamp at South Carolina. His consistency sets him apart. The Bulldogs finished 8-5 in his first season (2016), but since then, Georgia is the only team in the country to finish in the top 7 in the final AP poll every year. Smart’s Bulldogs have played for and/or won an SEC title or national title in six of those seven seasons. — Chris Low

2. Kalen DeBoer, Alabama

2023 record: 14-1 (.933)
Career record: 37-9 (.804)
Points: 62

After starting his career as an assistant at tiny Sioux Falls, his alma mater, DeBoer guided the NAIA Cougars to a 67-3 record with three national titles over a five-year stretch. From there, DeBoer embarked on a climb up the assistant-coaching ranks, during which each school he arrived at experienced near-unprecedented success, before being named the head coach at Fresno State. His modest two-year run there (12-6) led to the gig at Washington, where he transformed a team that won four games in 2021 to one that went 25-3 over the next two seasons, earning an appearance in the national title game this past season.

All DeBoer does is win. And now he takes over for the legendary Nick Saban, who set an unrealistic bar for what can be accomplished. — Kyle Bonagura

3. Kyle Whittingham, Utah

2023 record: 8-5 (.615)
Career record: 162-79 (.672)
Points: 56

Utah is the only home Whittingham has known since arriving at the school as the defensive line coach in 1994. He was elevated to defensive coordinator the next year and to head coach upon the departure of Urban Meyer just before the end of the 2004 season.

Since then, Whittingham has been a hallmark of consistency, finishing with just two losing seasons in 19 years (right after Utah made the jump from the Mountain West to the Pac-12). He guided the Utes to an undefeated season in 2008, two Pac-12 titles and eight top-25 finishes in the AP poll, including six in the past 10 years. All at a school without the resources of the other coaches’ programs on this list. — Bonagura

4. Dabo Swinney, Clemson

2023 record: 9-4 (.692)
Career record: 170-43 (.798)
Points: 50

Swinney brought longtime underachiever Clemson back to the national stage and became the first coach who truly challenged Nick Saban’s stranglehold on the sport. He guided Clemson to national titles in 2016 and 2018 — the program’s first since 1981 — while beating Saban’s Alabama squad both times. His teams made four CFP national championship game appearances in five seasons. Clemson won the ACC every year from 2015 to 2020 and never finished lower than No. 3 in the final AP poll.

A little-known wide receivers coach who became Clemson’s interim head coach midway through the 2008 season, Swinney is 170-43 as the Tigers’ head coach with eight league titles and 10 division titles. He won the Bryant Award as national coach of the year in 2015, 2016 and 2018.

Under Swinney, Clemson has had stretches when it was the nation’s premier program at positions such as wide receiver, defensive line and quarterback. Although the transfer portal/NIL era has brought more challenges, Swinney has won nine or more games in all but one full season as Clemson’s coach. — Adam Rittenberg

2023 record: 13-1 (.929)
Career record: 69-33 (.676)
Points: 49

How best to quantify Norvell’s greatness as a coach? Perhaps it’s his use of the transfer portal. While so many other coaches around the country have moaned and complained about the portal in recent years, Norvell has found the perfect formula for using it, landing standouts such as Trey Benson, Jermaine Johnson, Keon Coleman and Jared Verse, among a host of others. Or perhaps it’s the way he motivates his players, building a strong internal culture despite the extensive use of the portal.

But if you need one number to truly appreciate Norvell’s impact, here it is: 23. Twenty-three wins in the past two years at Florida State, a program that had won just 26 games total in the previous five seasons. The turnaround — in terms of wins, talent and culture — is genuinely remarkable. — David Hale

6. Dan Lanning, Oregon

2023 record: 12-2 (.857)
Career record: 22-5 (.815)
Points: 37

While only two seasons of work might make Lanning’s lofty ranking seem a bit premature, it’s hard to argue with what he has done in his first two seasons as a head coach. After helping Smart win a national championship in 2021 as Georgia’s defensive coordinator, Lanning has guided the Ducks to a 22-5 record.

Like Ryan Day at Ohio State, Lanning couldn’t get past what proved to be an insurmountable roadblock in the Pac-12: the Washington Huskies. Each of Oregon’s three losses to Washington the past two seasons were by three points, and the last one, a 34-31 defeat in the final Pac-12 championship game, was the most painful because it might have kept the Ducks out of the CFP.

Lanning has proven to be a great recruiter, helping Oregon land the No. 4 class in the FBS in 2024. The Ducks landed the top class in the Pac-12 in 2023. Lanning and his staff have also been adept at working the transfer portal, adding former Auburn quarterback Bo Nix, the starter the past two seasons, then Oklahoma passer Dillon Gabriel this year. There have been some questionable in-game decisions from Lanning, but one would expect he’ll get better with experience. Time will tell if Lanning follows in Smart’s footsteps as a former defensive coordinator who became one of the sport’s premier head coaches, but he’s well on his way to doing it. — Schlabach

7. Steve Sarkisian, Texas

2023 record: 12-2 (.857)
Career record: 71-49 (.592)
Points: 35

It was only a matter of time until Sarkisian put all the pieces together. After all, the guy has studied under three of the greatest coaches in modern college football history in LaVell Edwards, Pete Carroll and Nick Saban. Be it throwing for nearly 7,500 yards in two seasons with Edwards at BYU, serving as quarterbacks coach for Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart and Mark Sanchez under Carroll at USC, turning Jake Locker into a first-round pick (and then coaxing a pair of brilliant seasons out of Keith Price) while flipping Washington from 0-12 to 9-4, or averaging 47.2 and 48.5 points per game, respectively, in two seasons of calling plays for Saban at Alabama, Sarkisian has been heavily influential in offensive brilliance for most of the past 30 years.

His breakthrough as a head coach came in 2023. After going just 13-12 in his first two years leading a perpetually underachieving Texas program, Sark’s Longhorns won 12 games, took their first Big 12 title in 14 seasons and made their first College Football Playoff appearance. Now they head to the SEC with legitimate top-5 bona fides and a coach capable of not only leading them back among the country’s elite but keeping them there. — Bill Connelly

2023 record: 11-2 (.846)
Career record: 96-49 (.662)
Points: 29

At 48, Kiffin is already in his fifth head-coaching stop. He was hired as the Oakland Raiders’ coach in 2007, when he was only 31, and although there were some growing pains along the way, he has developed into one of the more creative and interesting coaches in college football. Entering his fifth season at Ole Miss, Kiffin has accomplished things in Oxford that hadn’t been done before. The Rebels have won 10 regular-season games in two of the past three seasons; prior to Kiffin’s arrival, they had never won 10 regular-season games. Kiffin is renowned as one of the top offensive minds in the game, and his offenses are both balanced and unpredictable. Ole Miss and Alabama are the only two teams in the SEC to average 33 or more points each of the past four seasons.

Kiffin is quick to troll anybody and everybody on social media and is polarizing among rival fan bases. He’s still a bit of a lightning rod, but said his time working under Saban helped him become a more efficient manager of an entire program. Kiffin has also worked the evolving nature of college football to his advantage and scored big in the transfer portal. — Low

9. Lance Leipold, Kansas

2023 record: 9-4 (.692)
Career record: 54-54 (.500)
Points: 28

In the six seasons before Lance Leipold arrived at Kansas, the Jayhawks went 9-60. In 2023, they went 9-4. You can almost rest your case right there. Hired after spring practice had already concluded in 2021, Leipold inherited a team that had gone 0-9 in 2020 and won two, then six, then nine games. While it’s unfair to compare anyone to Bill Snyder, he has done one hell of a Snyder impression over his first three seasons in Lawrence, and with his track record, there’s reason to believe he could keep it up.

This is, after all, a guy with six national titles on his résumé. Once a Division III dynasty builder at Wisconsin-Whitewater, Leipold has since taken his masterful culture building to Buffalo and KU, and damned if it’s not working wherever he goes. He’ll face a new challenge in 2024, coaching without ace offensive coordinator and right-hand man Andy Kotelnicki for the first time since 2012. (Kotelnicki moved on to the Penn State OC job.) But if anyone in college football gets the benefit of the doubt, it’s Leipold.

Kansas won nine games last year! Kansas! It boggles the mind. — Connelly

2023 record: 11-2 (.846)
Career record: 56-8 (.875)
Points: 27

Day’s teams are 39-3 in Big Ten play the past five-plus seasons, 56-8 overall and played in a New Year’s Six bowl game or the CFP in each of his full seasons. The Buckeyes won back-to-back Big Ten titles in his first two seasons (2019 and 2020) and are 18-8 against AP top-25 opponents under Day.

Unfortunately, those Big Ten losses came against that “Team Up North,” Michigan, in each of the past three seasons, leaving some Ohio State fans to wonder if Day should be on the hot seat. Whether he can reverse the Buckeyes’ losing streak to the Wolverines, especially now that former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is in the NFL, will go a long way in determining his future.

Day’s offenses have been ranked in the top three in the FBS in scoring three times and in total offense four times. Yet the Buckeyes are only 2-4 in bowl games and haven’t won a Big Ten title since 2020. Turning over the offensive playcalling to former UCLA head coach Chip Kelly might be the recipe to getting OSU back on top in the expanded Big Ten. — Schlabach

Also receiving votes: Brian Kelly, LSU (23); Lincoln Riley, USC (20); Kirk Ferentz, Iowa (7); Luke Fickell, Wisconsin (7); Eliah Drinkwitz, Missouri (6); Mack Brown, North Carolina (3); Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State (3); Jonathan Smith, Michigan State (3); Deion Sanders, Colorado (2); Curt Cignetti, Indiana (1); Chris Klieman, Kansas State (1); Jon Sumrall, Tulane (1)

The Arizona Coyotes are on the verge of relocating to Salt Lake City.

The NHL board of governors has to approve the transaction, but all signs point to Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith acquiring the beleaguered franchise, which began its run in the desert back in 1996 following relocation from Winnipeg.

News about the Coyotes’ move hit hyperspeed in the past week after multiple reports of the NHL preparing two different schedules, one with the team in Arizona and another with the team in Utah. The news came just days after the Coyotes had released images of the new arena they hoped to build outside of Phoenix.

What happened? Why is the team moving now, after several other instances in which it should have but didn’t relocate? Here’s the full picture, as we understand it, regarding the past, present and future of the Arizona Coyotes, courtesy of ESPN’s Ryan S. Clark, Kristen Shilton and Greg Wyshynski.

Why Utah?

While the Salt Lake City market has intrigued the NHL, the league’s decision to bring a team to that market is tied to having a deep-pocketed owner that wants one, and an arena ready to house one.

Ryan and Ashley Smith, owners of the NBA’s Utah Jazz, have been seeking an NHL team for a few years. In January, Smith Entertainment Group formally requested that the NHL initiate an expansion process and bring a team to Salt Lake City.

“The Utah expression of interest has been the most aggressive and has carried a lot of energy with it,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said at the NHL All-Star Game in February.

Ryan Smith had spent several years building a level of trust with Bettman. He had an arena in Delta Center, home of the Jazz, that had hosted NHL exhibition games. Smith told the NHL there would be renovations to make Delta Center more hockey-friendly if he was ever awarded a franchise.

Smith said in January he didn’t care how he acquired the team, saying: “Our goal is NHL in Utah. And I’ll leave the rest up to Gary.” But an NHL source told ESPN that Smith’s preference was to have an expansion team in Utah — and along with it, the chance to build one through an expansion draft.

His willingness to forgo that and accept a relocation was a key factor in the Coyotes moving to Salt Lake City.

Beyond the building and the owner, the NHL believes it’s a market with a ton of potential for hockey. It’s a winter sports town, and one that’s expected to host the 2034 Winter Olympics — a bid that could produce a new arena for the Jazz and the new NHL team. Salt Lake City has also been experiencing an economic boom: a 2024 report by the Milken Institute ranked Salt Lake City fourth among 403 U.S. cities in growth of jobs, wages and high-tech industry.

Like Arizona, having a team in Utah also fits nicely with the location of several other U.S.-based franchises in the Western Conference. — Wyshynski

How is the transaction going to work?

If approved, multiple sources told ESPN that Smith will pay between $1.2 and $1.3 billion for the team. Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo will receive $1 billion. The rest of the NHL’s owners will split between $200-$300 million as a relocation fee paid by Smith.

Sources have indicated that the total transaction is a complicated one, as it’s not a typical relocation. It’s expected the NHL will buy the Coyotes from Meruelo and sell what’s essentially a clean slate new team to Smith, who will retain the Coyotes’ players and hockey operations staff in the transaction.

This will allow Meruelo the chance to “restart” the Coyotes down the line.

Sources told ESPN that satisfying Meruelo was a key to the transaction. There was concern within the league as far back as NHL All-Star Weekend that Meruelo could wage a prolonged legal battle over relocation if the NHL decided it wanted the franchise moved, due to uncertainty about the Coyotes’ arena plans.

One way to satisfy Meruelo was to give him around $1 billion in the transaction. But Meruelo still wanted to own an NHL team in Arizona and still planned on building an arena for one. So the NHL had to find a creative way to keep the door open for Meruelo in Arizona while moving the current incarnation of the Coyotes.

Meruelo is still seeking to win an auction for a 95-acre parcel of land in north Phoenix, where he intends to build an arena, a practice facility, a theater, housing units and retail. The auction for that land is set for June 27.

It’s the latest arena plan for the team, which has been seeking a permanent home since the city of Glendale terminated its lease with the Coyotes at Gila River Arena following the 2021-22 season. The Coyotes moved to Mullett Arena while seeking an arena solution in Tempe. The Coyotes believed they had one with a 16,000-seat arena in a proposed $2.1 billion entertainment district, but voters rejected that plan in May 2023.

It was after the Tempe vote failed that the NHL began considering its options with Arizona. The league supported Meruelo’s attempt at winning the land auction and building his arena, but questions surrounding its eventual completion were numerous. That included cost, infrastructure and timeline — the Coyotes said shovels wouldn’t be in the ground until 2025, which meant the team would play in Mullett Arena until 2027, if not longer.

Thus, Bettman and the NHL came up with an ingenious way to satisfy their concerns and Meruelo’s needs. It’s expected that the final transaction will include a clause that allows Meruelo to “reactivate” the franchise as an expansion team — paying what’s expected to be a $1 billion expansion fee if that happens — between now and 2029 if his arena project is completed.

All of the team’s intellectual property — including those iconic Kachina jerseys — would remain with Meruelo. It’s an agreement that evokes the deal made with the city of Cleveland when the Browns moved to Baltimore in 1995.

If the project is completed, the NHL can return to a market where it clearly wants to have a team — witness the constant fights to “save” the Coyotes since their bankruptcy in 2009 — and have a state-of-the-art arena ready for an expansion team. If the project doesn’t come to pass, Meruelo walks away with $1 billion for having let the Coyotes move to Utah. — Wyshynski

Are all of the players, coaches and staff going to join the new franchise?

Every NHL team has personnel decisions they must consider in the offseason, and that would have been the case for the Coyotes whether they stayed in Arizona or relocated to Salt Lake City.

Per Cap Friendly, the team has 13 players who are under contract for next season. It’s a group that includes forwards such as Nick Bjugstad, Logan Cooley, Lawson Crouse, Clayton Keller, Matias Maccelli and Nick Schmaltz. Cooley was the third pick of the 2022 draft and is part of a core of homegrown players that includes Josh Doan, Dylan Guenther, Keller and Maccelli, among others.

They have three pending unrestricted free agents, including defenseman Travis Dermott, who could re-sign with the team or head elsewhere. They also have seven restricted free agents who are in need of a new contract. Five of those RFAs are defensemen, such as Sean Durzi, J.J. Moser and Juuso Valimaki.

All those players under contract could either remain with the franchise or get traded elsewhere, which is a scenario that every NHL franchise faces in the offseason.

Still, relocated teams go through changes, which was the case when the Atlanta Thrashers became the Winnipeg Jets after the 2010-11 season.

Of the 38 players that played at least one game for the Thrashers, there were 23 that remained with the club during their inaugural campaign in Winnipeg. It’s a group that included Nik Antropov, Dustin Byfuglien, Evander Kane, Andrew Ladd and Blake Wheeler.

Atlanta’s transition to Winnipeg also saw changes with the coaching staff and the front office. The Thrashers hired Craig Ramsay at the start of their last season in Atlanta only to have the team’s new ownership group move on from Ramsay and hire Claude Noel, who was the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks‘ AHL affiliate that was already in Winnipeg (the Manitoba Moose).

The Thrashers also hired Rick Dudley as their general manager in April 2010, but he was gone by June 2011. He was replaced with Kevin Cheveldayoff, who has been the only general manager the franchise has known since its time in Winnipeg.

So what’s the situation with the current coaching staff and front office that’s in place?

Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny is about to finish his third season with the club. Back in August, he signed a three-year extension, with general manager Bill Armstrong saying at the time, “He is an excellent coach, leader and communicator who has helped us establish a tremendous culture in our dressing room. Our players like him, respect him and compete hard for him.”

The club also signed assistant coach Mario Duhamel and goaltending coach Corey Schwab to multiyear extensions just days after announcing Tourigny’s new deal.

Less than a month later, the club announced it had signed Armstrong to a multiyear extension. Armstrong has been with the club for four seasons and has overseen an organization that has worked to develop one of the stronger farm systems in the NHL. Back in February, the team also gave contract extensions to director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski and associate director of amateur scouting Ryan Jankowski. — Clark

What are Coyotes players saying? What are other teams’ players saying?

The team’s players have been guarded publicly with their comments so far, waiting to learn more about how official the situation would become before opening up. They had, after all, answered questions when rumors of the franchising relocating cropped up in years past.

“We’ve just tried to focus on hockey and since I’ve played in Arizona, there’s always been a lot of rumors, so we try to do as best we can to try and focus on hockey,” Keller said. “It was definitely in our heads. You can say it’s not a distraction, but buddies, family, people are always texting and keep putting it in your head. [Tourigny] said we had another opportunity to deal with the same thing and learn from our past mistakes.”

Auston Matthews never suited up for the Coyotes. But if it weren’t for that Arizona-based team, the Scottsdale-raised Matthews may never have believed in pursuing the sport as a kid — a decision that’s led to Matthews becoming a first-overall pick, Hart Trophy winner and Rocket Richard winner as one of the league’s most prolific scorers.

He weighed in on a potential move by the Coyotes prior to the news this weekend that a change was imminent.

“Obviously, selfishly, growing up there with them was a big part of me getting into hockey,” Matthews said Thursday. “I’d love for them to figure it out, but you kind of understand the position the NHL’s in as well.”

Maple Leafs rookie Matthew Knies is another one of the few Arizona-bred players in the NHL, and expressed his disappointment last week about the Coyotes potentially moving elsewhere.

“Not too happy with the situation,” Knies said. “It’s pretty unfortunate. The Coyotes did a lot for me growing up, and I loved going to the games. It was a big reason as to why I got into hockey. But that kind of situation is out of my control. I’m hopeful that they can stay there, because it meant a lot to me, but I guess we’re going to have to see what happens.”

If it weren’t for the Coyotes, Knies said he might not have pursued playing hockey. Naturally he was concerned losing an NHL team in that area will impact how other kids view their opportunity in the sport, and was hopeful the Coyotes would stick.

“When I was growing up, [Arizona] wasn’t the hockey hotbed Colorado or Chicago or Detroit was,” he said. “But it was definitely growing, and you could see the potential there. The Coyotes were a big part of that, and so it’s definitely gotten a lot better. I know a lot of kids are starting to pick up a hockey stick now, and it’s just really good to see. So, again, hope they can stay there.” — Shilton

Will it be the Utah Coyotes, or a new team identity?

Even if there are actual coyotes in the state of Utah, it appears as if there is going to be a new name for the franchise.

Smith, who is also a co-owner of Real Salt Lake in MLS and the Utah Royals in the NWSL, took to social media on April 8 asking, “If an NHL team were to come to Utah, what should we name it?” The question was then followed by a link to a survey.

As of Saturday, the survey was no longer active.

Smith’s post on X generated more than 3 million views and over 1,000 responses. Some of the proposed team names were serious suggestions, while others were a bit more sardonic.

There were some who suggested the new team be called the Salt Lake Golden Eagles, an homage to the professional team that was there from 1969 through 1994 before they left town to become the Detroit Vipers.

Others suggested some winter-themed names such as the Utah Blizzard or the Utah Yeti. But there were some who wondered if that would work given that the Colorado Avalanche are in a neighboring state and have similar elements in their name and uniform design.

A few people chimed in with ideas such as the Utah Buzz, the Utah Hive, the Utah Stingers, the Utah Swarm and the Salt Lake City Swarm. Those are all nods to the state’s extensive relationship with bees. One of Utah’s nicknames is “The Beehive State.” The Western honey bee is the official insect of Utah, while a beehive is featured on the state flag, the state seal and Utah State Route road signs.

And yes, there were some who suggested that they keep Coyotes given there are coyotes in the state. But as noted above, the deal between Meruelo and the NHL is that Meruelo will be able to retain the team name and intellectual property in the hopes of “reactivating” the Coyotes franchise in the future.

There’s also the recent historical precedent that’s been set with relocated NHL teams and changing names. Five of the past six relocated teams have changed their names to something that was more regional in nature.

For example, the Colorado Rockies became the New Jersey Devils while the Quebec Nordiques turned into the Colorado Avalanche. It was the same for when the original Winnipeg Jets became the Coyotes, the Hartford Whalers were changed to the Carolina Hurricanes and the Atlanta Thrashers became the Winnipeg Jets once the NHL came back to Manitoba.

The only team of those six to relocate and keep part of its original name was when the Minnesota North Stars relocated to become the Dallas Stars. The franchise kept “Stars” due to Texas being known as “The Lone Star State.” — Clark

Where will the team play? Will it get a new arena in the future?

The plan right now is for the Utah team to play out of the Delta Center, a facility owned by Smith that is home to the NBA’s Jazz.

However, as ESPN’s Emily Kaplan reported, sources have said the NHL told the Smiths there are hockey-specific upgrades needed at Delta Center if it were to become the team’s permanent home.

The venue has hosted preseason NHL games in each of the past four seasons — primarily between L.A. and Vegas — but the current layout would limit sightlines for NHL games and prohibit the Smiths from selling the arena to 18,206-seat capacity (only 10,420 seats were sold for those NHL preseason games).

Given the limited amount of time before puck drop of the 2024-25 season, it’s not as if the Smiths would be expected to completely overhaul their facility overnight. But some alterations will be possible over the summer and more changes could be carried out in the next offseason.

Smith has government support on that front thanks to a bill passed in the Utah State Senate to help fund a renovated entertainment district downtown. That was in anticipation of an NHL franchise potentially relocating there, something to which Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has expressed — and had already given — his approval prior to the weekend’s news. — Shilton

What’s the future of the NHL in Arizona?

The NHL has never wavered about how it values the Arizona market. The league likes the population size, its television audience and its geography in relation to other U.S. teams in the Western Conference. There’s also been a significant youth hockey boom in that market during the franchise’s time in Arizona. NHL players like the Maple Leafs’ Matthews and Knies grew up rooting for the Coyotes.

Bettman has called the Coyotes “a victim of circumstance” when it comes to their struggles in the market, through ownership issues and their arena plights.

“We believe Arizona and particularly the greater Phoenix area is a good NHL market and a place we want to be,” he said in May 2023.

While leaving the door open for Meruelo to own an expansion franchise in a new arena was clearly a way to satisfy him in the relocation gambit, the fact remains that the NHL appears committed to bringing an expansion team back to Arizona. Bettman has been steadfast in saying that the NHL is not currently in an expansion mode, but cities like Houston and Atlanta are also showing significant interest. — Wyshynski

Timeline of the NHL’s Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes (1995-2024)

1995: The Winnipeg Jets are sold to Minnesota businessmen Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke, who intended to move them to Minneapolis-St. Paul for the 1996-97 season. After being unable to work out a lease agreement in the Twin Cities, they instead opted to move the team to Phoenix.

1996: The now-Phoenix Coyotes play in America West Arena, home of the NBA’s Suns, in a facility that was suboptimal for hockey. Players on that inaugural team included Keith Tkachuk, Jeremy Roenick, Hall of Famer Mike Gartner, goalie Nikolai Khabibulin and Shane Doan, who played his rookie season with the Jets and then 20 seasons with the Coyotes.

2001: Burke, now the primary owner, sells the Coyotes to an ownership group that includes Phoenix-area developer Steve Ellman and NHL legend Wayne Gretzky, who was a part-owner and the team’s new president of hockey operations.

2003: After attempts to further retrofit America West Arena and build a new building in Scottsdale failed, Ellman turned his attention to West Valley. In 2001, he signed a lease agreement with the city of Glendale to build a new arena. On Dec. 27, 2003, the Coyotes played their first game at Glendale Arena, beginning a run of 18 seasons there. As attendance for the team fell from a high of 15,582 tickets distributed per game in 2005-06 to just 11,989 in 2009-10, the arena’s location away from where many Coyotes fans lived became a point of criticism.

2005: Jerry Moyes, a trucking magnate who was also a part-owner of Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks, buys the Coyotes from Ellman. Gretzky becomes head coach of the team, a position he held for four seasons without a playoff berth.

2006: The Coyotes were set to host the 2006 NHL All-Star Game, which never happened due to the NHL players’ involvement in the 2006 Winter Olympics. The Coyotes would never host an All-Star Game or draft in their time in Arizona.

2009: Media reports revealed that the Coyotes were hemorrhaging money and being propped by up by the NHL. In May, Moyes put the team into bankruptcy with the intention of having Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie, former CEO of BlackBerry creator Research In Motion, relocate the team to Hamilton in Ontario, Canada. The NHL stripped Moyes of his ownership authority. In bankruptcy hearing, the NHL put in a bid against that of Balsillie and argued that this bid, if accepted by the court, would have circumvented NHL rules. The court sided with the NHL, which took over the team and sought a new owner that would keep the franchise in Arizona.

2012: Under coach Dave Tippett, the Coyotes win their only division title and make their only conference final. After qualifying for the playoffs in their first four seasons in Phoenix, the Coyotes would make the playoff tournament only four times before relocating.

2013: After close calls with potential owners like Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, Chicago investor Matt Hulsizer, former San Jose Sharks owner Greg Jamison and “Ice Edge Holdings,” the NHL finally unloaded the Coyotes to an ownership collective called IceArizona and Renaissance Sports and Entertainment for a reported $225 million. That came with a 15-year lease with the city of Glendale that ended speculation that the team would relocate to Seattle.

2014: The team rebrands as the Arizona Coyotes. IceArizona sells a controlling interest in the Coyotes to hedge fund manager Andrew Barroway.

2015: The Glendale City Council votes 5-2 to end its 15-year agreement for the Coyotes to manage and play at Gila River Arena, opting for short-term leases at a reduced rate for the city.

2016: The Coyotes announce plans for an arena in Tempe for the 2019-20 season that would have created facilities for the Arizona State University hockey team. ASU pulls out of the deal in 2017.

2019: Barroway sells the majority of the Coyotes to billionaire Alex Meruelo, the first Latino owner in the NHL. Meruelo takes full control of the team in 2023.

2021: The city of Glendale and the Gila River Arena choose not to renew their operating agreement with the Coyotes beyond the 2021-22 season.

2022: The Coyotes move to Mullett Arena, a 5,000-seat facility on the campus of ASU and home to the school’s men’s hockey team, signing a three-year lease with options that carried through 2027. The team and the NHL called it a temporary move while the Coyotes attempted to secure a new arena site.

2023: Meruelo’s proposal to turn a Tempe landfill into a $2.1 billion arena and entertainment complex is defeated in a public vote, a result that was shocking for the franchise and the NHL. Bettman called it “terribly disappointing” and said “we are going to review with the Coyotes what the options might be going forward.”

2024: While Coyotes fans and players prepared for the team to bid on a parcel of land near Phoenix for a potential new arena in the summer, the possibility arose of Meruelo selling the franchise, with the NHL and the Smith Entertainment Group relocating it to Salt Lake City. — Wyshynski

CHICAGO — With one dash up the middle of the ice, Frank Nazar provided a glimmer of hope for the Chicago Blackhawks at the end of another losing season.

Nazar scored on his first shot on goal in his NHL debut in Chicago’s home finale against the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday.

Wearing No. 91, a smiling Nazar got a big cheer from the early arriving fans when he took the ice for his solo rookie lap ahead of warmups. He centered a line with Jason Dickinson and Joey Anderson.

After coming up empty on an early power-play opportunity, Nazar got a slick pass from Seth Jones and skated in on Pyotr Kochetkov for a breakaway. He beat Kochetkov on the goaltender’s stick side 10:05 into the first period, sending a charge through the United Center crowd of 18,742.

“It was a nice play at the blue line,” Nazar said after Chicago’s 4-2 loss. “I was able to go in and I was just kind of shooting for whatever’s open.”

The 20-year-old Nazar, one of Chicago’s top prospects, turned pro after Michigan lost 4-0 to Boston College in the Frozen Four on Thursday night. The 5-foot-10 forward agreed to a three-year contract that runs through the 2025-26 season at a $950,000 salary cap hit.

“It was a really hard decision,” Nazar said. “Me and my family had to put things together, pros and cons, and just look at what we needed to look at, and it just all came down to what was best, and I know I made the right choice.”

Chicago is hoping Nazar becomes a key player in its ongoing rebuilding project. While Connor Bedard has lived up to the hype in his rookie year, the Blackhawks are 23-52-5 with two games left on their schedule.

Nazar, a Detroit native, was the No. 13 overall pick in the 2022 NHL draft. He had 17 goals and 24 assists in 41 games in his last season with the Wolverines, including three winning goals.

“I thought he was really good,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “Very aware, made some really nice plays out there, and very responsible, too. Above his check all over the place. Definitely had a really good first game.”

Chicago finishes its schedule with games at Vegas on Tuesday and Los Angeles on Thursday. But having Nazar make his debut against Carolina allowed him to experience the atmosphere at home before next season.

“I think it’s a special place, and this is our last home game, so I think it’ll be really special for him and his family, which I’ve met and they’re great people,” Richardson said before the loss.

Nazar had 19 goals and 29 assists while appearing in 54 games for Michigan in two seasons. He also helped the U.S. win the 2024 world junior championship, recording eight assists in seven games.