The Arizona Coyotes have signed the 2015 NHL Draft’s number three overall pick, Dylan Strome, to a three-year entry-level contract, the team announced on Monday night.
BREAKING: #Coyotes Sign @stromer19 to Entry-Level Contract | Congrats Dylan & Welcome! MORE http://t.co/0qQ1f7UbGW pic.twitter.com/6v1rpfJhDu
— Arizona Coyotes (@ArizonaCoyotes) July 7, 2015
The 18-year-old center led the Ontario Hockey League in scoring last year after scoring 45 goals and 84 assists in 68 games. The 6-foot-3 teenager totaled 40 multi-point games playing for the Eerie Otters and also received the William Hanley Memorial Trophy as the league’s most sportsmanlike player.
Strome will be a big part of the Coyotes rebuild, no matter what part of the desert that rebuild takes place in (Glendale, Phoenix, Las Vegas…). In the announcement, Coyotes GM Don Maloney said, “all he’s done his entire career is lead his teams and leagues in scoring and win championships. He will be an important player for us in the future and a key building block for this franchise.”
He’ll now be thrown into a team with a ton of talent at 23 or younger — Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Brendan Perlini, Christian Dvorak, Max Domi, Anthony Duclair — and not a whole lot of veteran talent. Antoine Vermette, Mikkel Boedker, defenseman Zbynek Michalek, and hall of famer Chris Pronger’s paperwork are the biggest names on the team. It’s going to be rough year in Arizona. On the upside, the season is only 82 games long and they may get Auston Matthews out of the suffering this year. If you don’t want them to get Matthews, you do not have a heart.
RELATED: Boedker, Hanzal Among Coyotes Seeking Bounceback Year
[catlist categorypage=”yes” numberposts=3 excludeposts=this]
Sign up for The Hockey Writers’ Arizona Coyotes newsletter.