Alex Goligoski got a phone call this summer from his landscaper, notifying him that a monsoon storm had blown through his neighborhood and popped open a door on his house. He didn’t think much of it until he and his wife, Amanda, arrived back in Arizona in time for the team’s informal skates and training camp.

“When we came back, we were living in the house for a couple days and there was this really bad smell coming from the kitchen somewhere,” Goligoski said. “We couldn’t figure it out. We thought maybe it was the garbage disposal. Then we looked under the refrigerator one day and there was a dead snake.”

The couple had the same visceral reaction that many of us would have upon making that discovery. A surprisingly large number of Coyotes have endured similar encounters with the live and unique wildlife that populates the state. Arizona’s players, past and present, have had run-ins with scorpions, javelinas, Gila monsters, snakes and yes, coyotes.

Goligoski’s incident turned a friendly ally, the refrigerator, into a sinister accomplice for concealing danger.

“It’s definitely a process where you start checking every day for stuff,” he said. “That was not a fun time to be in the house. We were thinking, ‘we should just move.’”

Coyotes goaltender Antti Raanta did exactly that last season when inspectors determined there was no way to rid his rental house in Grayhawk of the scorpion infestation that had driven his wife, Anna, to the brink of insanity. Every day it seemed, she would discover new intruders.

“We were on a road trip when she found two in the kitchen,” Raanta said. “She called (Coyotes security director) Jimmy O’Neal and said, ‘I’ve had enough. I can’t be here anymore.’ She packed her bags, took the baby and took the dog and went to a hotel for a couple nights.”

The Raantas have been living in a condo for the past year while they wait to move into their new house next month. They knew they couldn’t stay in Grayhawk.

“We had a company come in and say: ‘It doesn’t matter what we do. The scorpions are living inside the walls. They will find a way in,’” Raanta said. “Once we heard that we took off. You know you have them here in Arizona but when you see them almost daily in your house, it starts to be a little too much.”

Players normally get some sort of scouting report on the living realities of Arizona when they move here, but most of the players live in the northeast Valley so they are in close proximity or even adjacent to desert areas. That increases the likelihood of these sorts of encounters, and no amount of preparation can prepare them for the reality of those confrontations.

Teammates reported that defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson was stung by a scorpion — an ordeal he opted not to discuss. Former Coyote Jeremy Roenick had an infamous indoor encounter with a snake.

Former Coyote and current radio analyst Paul Bissonnette discovered a live rattlesnake with the imprint of the garage door on its back one morning as he came out of his house, and defenseman Kevin Connauton has had a pair of run-ins with rattlesnakes and a stand-off with a band of javelinas.

“We had a little bit of a scare this summer when my dog got bit by a snake in the face,” Connauton said of his yellow lab, Goose. “He had a big welt on his face and had to get on an IV, but he’s all right.”

While Connauton was with the Coyotes’ split squad in Los Angeles on Tuesday, his wife, Brooke, let the two dogs out and a big rattlesnake popped its head up on the front porch, but did not strike the dogs.

“One night when we came home, we had 20 to 30 javelinas outside our garage door and they weren’t moving,” Connauton said. “I drove my car right up to them and they just stood their ground. We were in a bit of a showdown. I was revving the engine, honking the horn and they weren’t budging. Eventually they walked away.”

Most of the players have embraced the fact that life in Arizona includes some risks. Coach Rick Tocchet has seen his share of wildlife on the golf courses, where Gila monsters and snakes like to sunbathe. The way Tocchet views it, if you shank an errant shot that lands near one of those reptiles, you have two choices.

“You either have to take a free drop or learn to play better golf,” he said.

Derek Stepan hasn’t had any snakes or scorpions in his house, but he has had javelinas on his property and he sees scorpions almost every night in his yard.

“I go hunting them each night when I’m grilling,” he said, laughing. “Throw the meat on, pull out the blacklight and just go do my sweep.”

Derek Stepan, scorpion hunter.

Coyotes newcomer Michael Grabner is fascinated by the desert’s offerings. When he checked out his new house at night, he found 15 to 20 scorpions in a pit that once housed a trampoline. When he chose to have some bushes removed, he found a rattlesnake chilling in that once sheltered place.

“The snake was pretty cool,” he said. “She was pretty calm. She wasn’t rattling or anything. I thought she ate something because she was bigger but our trainer (massage therapist Eric Ford) came and got her and he said she was pregnant.

“He has a company that does snake fencing so we got the yard fenced, but I don’t care. It’s cool to see this stuff. It’s different. I like wildlife as long as I don’t get bit. I just want to see them early enough so I know what’s coming.”

The desert has its challenges and perils, but the Coyotes insist they aren’t complaining about their sunny digs, especially when they remember the alternative of their former lives in the cold.

“You don’t see rattlesnakes and scorpions back in Edmonton, Alberta,” Connauton said, “but I’ll take that over the mosquitoes any day.”

(Top photo by Kevin Hoffman/USA Today Sports)