There have been other significant figures in the Coyotes’ 23-year Valley history – franchise-saving ownership groups, an always-quotable GM, iconic captains, two Jack Adams Award-winning coaches and a host of key players. Most of them will be at Gila River Arena on Feb. 24 to watch the most significant Coyotes player in franchise history properly fêted.

Shane Doan will have his number retired before the Coyotes game against the Winnipeg Jets — the first player to have his jersey retired by the Coyotes organization. He will also join Bobby Hull, Dale Hawerchuk, Thomas Steen, Keith Tkachuk, Jeremy Roenick and Teppo Numminen in the team’s ring of honor. The Athletic is running a special series titled “19 Days of Doan” to honor the longtime captain. We’ve collected stories, anecdotes and tributes from all of the groups mentioned above.

The story below is a re-purposing of one of my favorite stories I have written off a game. The original version was written for Fox Sports Arizona. Thanks to FSAZ senior director of communications and marketing, Brett Hansen, for allowing me to use portions of it.

Shane Doan skated to the bench with a grim smile creasing his face. The clock was running out, and so was his strength. The Coyotes captain appeared destined for an individual NHL record that nobody wants — the most career two-goal games without a hat trick.

He had tried everything from voodoo to prayers to break the streak. He had even altered the bizarre, specially made, curved knob at the end of his stick — the one teammate Ray Whitney referred to as an axe handle.

“It was ugliest thing I have ever seen,” Whitney said.

Doan had scored the first two goals of the game – one in the first period and one in the second – to stake the Coyotes to an early lead against the New York Islanders on Jan. 7, 2012. The goals were significant because the games were significant. The Coyotes entered the game having lost six of their last seven to fall four points off the playoff pace in the Western Conference. As they approached the All-Star break, only four teams had fewer points in the West.

“We needed wins, and that was the biggest thing on my mind,” Doan said.

In this moment, however, his teammates and his coach, Dave Tippett, had an additional priority.

“I just kept putting him back out there,” Tippett chuckled. “And Whits was right there with him.”

Doan logged a whopping 21:15 of ice time in that game and his teammates kept trying to find him for that elusive third goal.

“It was getting embarrassing,” Doan said.

In his final extended shift of the game, Doan had already been on the ice for two-plus minutes when Whitney saw both an opportunity, and the challenge in taking advantage of that opportunity.

“He’s been up and down the ice so much and that’s a big frame to be chugging around the ice that long,” Whitney said. “You could tell he was getting tired. I get back on the ice in the last 30 seconds, the puck gets turned over to the Islanders and I can see he’s going to give up. He just can’t do it anymore. Then the puck turns over again and I look at him and I scream, ‘Let’s go!’

“He looks at me like he can’t believe I’m asking him to do this again, but he dragged that big ass of his up the ice one more time and then we cut to the middle to cross. He knew exactly what I was doing and I knew exactly what he was doing. We had practiced it before and I told him, ‘You shoot the puck so hard that when we cross, it doesn’t matter how far out it is. If you can one-time it, chances are a goalie isn’t going to get it.’”

Doan had to collect Whitney’s pass, but he released the shot quickly and he got all of it, beating Islanders goalie Evgeni Nabokov with one-tenth of a second on the clock in a 5-1 win.

The drama didn’t end there, however. Because the goal came so late, officials had to review it to make certain it had beaten the final horn.

“I went over and told the refs, ‘Listen, it’s been a long time. It’s been 16 years. Tell Toronto that this may never happen again, so make sure this counts,’” Whitney said. “I’m not sure if Toronto was doctoring the tape to make sure it looked good, but it counted. I don’t think anybody has worked harder or longer to get a hat trick in the NHL, being a top-six forward.”

In a curious coincidence, No. 19 registered his first career hat trick in the Coyotes’ 19th home game of the season, ending his dubious streak at 38 two-goal games without a hat trick. That tied 16-year veteran Petr Sykora for the most in league history, and Doan fell just short of Scott Mellanby’s 319 career goals without a hat trick. Doan had 308 at the time.

As hats rained down from the stands and teammates mobbed Doan, defenseman Keith Yandle thought about all the chances Doan had had to break this dubious string. Yandle had been there for many of them. He recalled a game when Doan scored two early goals then had a chance to score No. 3 into an empty net when Yandle passed him the puck at the red line.

“He had the whole zone to skate it in, but he decided to shoot it from right there,” Yandle said.

Doan hit the post.

“I almost puked,” Yandle said.

In the locker room after the game, Yandle and teammate Paul Bissonnette dumped all of the hats at Doan’s feet to commemorate the unforgettable moment.

“It was almost storybook,” said longtime equipment manager Stan Wilson, Doan’s close friend.

Whitney was happy to see his teammate finally break the hex, and he was thrilled to have played such a major role in ending it.

“It means a lot when you have a player as good as Shane is,” Whitney said. “It wasn’t like he played so long and was an average player. He was an All-Star player and he takes that long to get a hat trick? I just don’t get it, but that’s this game.

“I didn’t score a bunch of hat tricks either, so to be the primary passer on the third one, it’s gratifying to feel like a big part of it. You could see the relief and the tiredness in his eyes.”

(Photo of Doan postgame on Jan. 7, 2012: Norm Hall / NHLI via Getty Images)