Arizona Coyotes Sign Alex Goligoski to Five Year Deal

The Arizona Coyotes announced on Tuesday night that they have reached an agreement, with Alex Goligoski, on a five-year deal worth 5.5 million per season. 

The Coyotes received the negotiating rights to Goligoski from the Dallas Stars on June 16 in exchange for a fifth round pick in the 2016 National Hockey League Draft. Goligoski could have become an unrestricted free agent on Saturday July 1, had the Coyotes not convinced him to stick around. 

Coyotes general manager, John Chayka said, “I think he is a perfect fit for our team with where we are at with our young group of forwards. They need someone who plays the new age of defense, which is transition to offense and getting the puck up to our forwards and joining the rush and supporting the attack.”

Chayka added, “Those are some of the key variables that we see that he brings to the table. And with a team over the last few years that has not been good in defensive metrics, he has got a real history of being strong defensively and good on the penalty kill and being used in all situations. He is a very versatile player that our coaching staff would enjoy.”

 

The five-foot-11, 186-pound defenseman scored five goals and 32 assists for the Stars this past season. During the Stars 13 postseason games, he added four goals and three assists for Dallas. 

The Grand Rapids, Minnesota native began his career with the Pittsburgh Penguins helping them win the Stanley Cup in 2009. Over the course of his career, Goligoski has scored 277 points in 562 games. 

This past season he averaged about 24 minutes per game, but with the Coyotes, the puck moving defenseman will more than likely see a substantial increase in his playing time. 

The Coyotes still have plenty of space under the salary cap to become heavily involved in the free agent frenzy. With almost 40 million dollars in cap space, and having 14 players under contract for the upcoming season, they still need to get to cap floor of 54 million. 

They still need to work on some deals with their restricted free agents, but they do have plenty of room to get aggressive come July 1^st.