(Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire)

A winning record, excelling rookies, promising prospects and a hopeful attitude. These are just a few things Arizona Coyotes fans should be thankful for this Thanksgiving. If that isn’t enough to get fans in the holiday spirit, a simple last-year-to-this-year comparison should do the trick.

One year ago, the Coyotes were spinning their tires at 9-11-3, coming off a game in which they squandered a 3-0 lead at home against the Colorado Avalanche before losing in overtime 4-3. Things only got worse from there as the Coyotes finished the season with the second-worst record in the NHL and the worst record in the franchise’s Arizona existence (24-50-8).

Thanksgiving Eve treated the Coyotes better this year, as Arizona defeated the Anaheim Ducks for the third time this season to improve to 11-9-1.

Poring over the team’s first 21 games in retrospect reveals a body of work that has at minimum exceeded preseason expectations and may prove to be a launching point for the franchise’s Phoenix-like rise back to playoff relevance. The largest puzzle piece of the rebuild is the sensational core of young forwards.

Max Domi and Anthony Duclair are leading the rookie charge for the Coyotes and have brought a new level of speed and excitement to a team known in the past for its tight defensive, veteran-heavy system.

Operating with a shoestring budget for several years forced the Coyotes to rely on cheap veterans to get by. Thanks to head coach Dave Tippett’s system — and more than a few players with chips on their shoulders who outperformed expectations — the Coyotes made the postseason three consecutive seasons from 2010-2012 before the bottom eventually fell out. Once the magic well ran dry, the team’s poor drafting in the mid-2000s and its financial constraints became abundantly clear and could not be ignored.

Arizona’s successes on draft day improved over time and the team is finally reaping the rewards of the delayed process of prospect development.

Learning from past mistakes, the Coyotes took their time with 2013 12th overall pick Max Domi, allowing him to play two more seasons in the OHL with the London Knights after drafting him before getting a taste of NHL action. It paid off, and Domi is right in the thick of the Calder Trophy race with eight goals and 18 points one quarter of the way through the season. He’s playing top-line minutes and looks every bit like the star fans expected him to be.

Taking a step back to view the bigger picture, all of Arizona’s 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2013 first-round picks (Mikkel Boedker, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Connor Murphy and Domi) are playing prominent roles on the 2015-16 squad, with the last two years’ worth of first rounders expected to make a push to crack the 2016-17 opening-night roster.

Away from the draft-day podium, Arizona’s youth movement has also been aided via the trade market.

In March 2013, the Coyotes unloaded glorified face-puncher Kale Kessy in exchange for Tobias Rieder in a trade the Oilers would love to forget. Rieder has since become a jack-of-all-trades for the Coyotes, playing significant minutes on both special teams units, including his role as the team’s top penalty-killing winger. Rieder has 18 goals and 32 points in 93 career games while Kessy is toiling away in the AHL, yet to make an NHL appearance.

Last season, the Coyotes moved their top offensive defenseman Keith Yandle to the New York Rangers in a deal that brought Duclair and high draft picks to the desert as part of the team’s rebuild. Duclair’s eight goals this season are tied for first among all rookies with Domi and Detroit’s Dylan Larkin.

Duclair and Domi have more than a few highlight reel hook-ups this season. In fact, Domi has the primary assist on half of Duclair’s goals.

“(Domi’s) making unbelievable plays, not only in the offensive zone, he’s making them in the defensive end,” Duclair said, unsurprised by the connection the two have had this season.

Domi and Duclair are two of five Coyotes (Martin Hanzal, Boedker, Ekman-Larsson) on pace to exceed Ekman-Larsson’s team-leading 43 points last season.

Looking ahead, the Coyotes have a handful of quality forward prospects who will push to join the group in the next season or two. Brendan Perlini is a dynamic scoring winger who can fill the shoot-first void on the power play. Dylan Strome provides much-needed depth at center and could be the team’s No. 2 center for the next decade. Christian Dvorak, Nick Merkley, Ryan MacInnis and Laurent Dauphin are solid middle-six forwards in the making, with the latter potentially filling in as a future two-way, third-line pivot with penalty killing responsibilities.

There is an area of concern in the Coyotes’ system though: the cupboard is bare from the blue line back.

Those areas should have been addressed at the 2010 draft, but 13th overall pick Brandon Gormley never lived up to his potential on the blue line and was traded to Colorado in September. Fellow first-round pick Mark Visentin (27th overall) was not given a qualifying offer in the offseason after many believed he had the potential to be Arizona’s future starting goalie not too long ago.

How the organization puts all those pieces of the puzzle together, and adds pieces to make up for its shortcomings, will ultimately determine the team’s long-term fate. Is 2014-15 the first step toward a future Stanley Cup run or are the Coyotes destined to be an exciting team with nothing to show for it if and when their championship window opens and slams shut?

Considering the way last season ended, just the possibility of a playoff run this season is something fans can be thankful for. Even if that doesn’t come to fruition, there is plenty to look forward to for hockey fans in the desert.