Max Domi: Arizona’s Shiniest new toy

In a stroke of almost depressing irony, Max Domi performed the ceremonial puck drop at the Air Canada Centre Wednesday night with Robby Fabbri, highly touted prospect of the St. Louis Blues and teammate of Domi from the World Junior Championship gold medal team.

Of course, the Blues fairly destroyed the Coyotes on Tuesday night, but that’s not the important part of this story.

The important part?

Apparently, the Air Canada Centre went NUTS for Max Domi. NUTS.

At the World Junior Championship, Domi was named player of the tournament and one of the three forwards on the WJC All Star Team, alongside Sam Reinhart and Connor McDavid. He scored five goals on the road to a ten-point tournament, skating on a line that combined for fourteen goals in eight games. He was named player of the game against the United States (netting two goals and taking six shots over the three periods of the 5-3 win), and responded to his historical criticisms of poor defensive play by spearheading Team Canada’s penalty kill. He stayed out of the penalty box for most of the tournament, but fired up his team and posed a threat against any line he was faced with.

His high energy, immense talent, and infectious attitude clearly struck a chord with the hapless Toronto fans, though — because his presence at the game between the Maple Leafs and the Washington Capitals ignited a storm of trade demands from fans at the ACC.

What they’re asking for

Need domi trade kessel if you have to — Shahir Shaikh (@ShahirShaikh67) January 6, 2015

If you’re a Toronto Maple Leafs fan (or just a hyper-aware hockey fan in general), you know — where the Leafs are superior to the Coyotes on offense, they’re sorely deficient on defense.

As such, the most oft-named trade requested by fans was a Max Domi for Phil Kessel swap.

Some wanted Domi and a pick for the star offensive winger for the United States; others were confident that an outright swap was more than fair. All were of the same mind, though — what Domi brings to a team in energy, character, and defensive prowess would make up for the loss in scoring that would inevitably result from trading an established veteran thirty goal scorer for a nineteen-year-old prospect.

Others were more generous; they reasoned that a handful of Toronto skaters for Domi would aid Arizona in their ‘rebuild’, while giving Toronto exactly what they wanted. Tyler Bozak and Jake Gardiner? You can have him! Mike Santorelli and Dion Phaneuf? Take them! Whatever it takes to bring Max Domi to his father’s alma mater.

Why Coyotes fans should care

While this sent me into peals of laughter last night, this is actually quite an important occurrence for Coyotes fans to take note of.

The Toronto Maple Leafs did a big thing on Tuesday in firing their head coach, Randy Carlyle, despite sitting in a playoff position and on a winning record.

They did this, of course, because all signs pointed to the team getting worse defensively under Carlyle’s direction. The team was getting outshot by a grotesque margin — over Carlyle’s tenure in Toronto, the Maple Leafs were outshot by a grand total of 1,254 shots on goal — and despite sitting on a winning record, the team had gone 3-7-0 in the ten games they played before dismissing the coach.

Upon firing Carlyle, many Eastern Conference teams were actually upset — because a rival franchise, particularly one that most people assumed would collapse mid-season and fall out of playoff contention altogether — had made a move to make themselves better.

The fact that the fans of this team believe that trading their top scorer — or, at the very least, their most established point-getter — for Max Domi would make the team better yet? Arizona, you have been given a gift.

I spent some time at my full-time job discussing how a single player can reshape an entire franchise — at the time, I was discussing Rob Klinkhammer in Edmonton, but the same applies for Domi in Arizona. What he brings to the franchise in scorepower and offensive energy is something that’s both invaluable to any team and season-altering for a franchise that gets lost in games where they don’t score first. Max Domi can both get his team on the scoreboard before their opponents AND keep the energy high when the other team strikes first; if Toronto’s willingness to relinquish half their franchise for him doesn’t tell you that, his immense value at the World Juniors should.

I have no delusions that Max Domi is going to become a generational talent. Even Tyler Seguin is still being discussed as a franchise cornerstone versus a generational player; I don’t foresee Domi being better than that.

His attitude, his play, and his teamwork will do big things for the Coyotes, though. Toronto is jealous — and if that doesn’t help ease the pain of a couple 6-0 losses, you’re watching the wrong sport.