On Wednesday, Arizona announced it had signed veteran blueliners Keith Aulie and Corey Potter to training camp PTOs.
Aulie, 26, spent last year in Edmonton but only appeared in 31 games
Potter, 31, spent last year in Calgary and appeared in just six.
Needless to say, these aren’t earth-shattering acquisitions.
But it’s pretty clear why Arizona extended the invites.
The club is really young on the back end -- only Nicklas Grossmann and Zbynek Michalek are over 30 -- and has two fairly untested entities looking to make the leap in 23-year-old Brandon Gormley, and 24-year-old Klas Dahlbeck.
Of the two invitees, Aulie is probably more likely to stick with the Coyotes. He’s got good size (6-foot-6, 222 pounds) and could be a good NHL/AHL stopgap to replace Dylan Reese, who will be sidelined for the next 4-6 months after suffering an injury during offseason training.