Max Domi Won’t Join AHL This Season
The Arizona Coyotes were a bad NHL team this year. They will need prospects to rebuild, and Max Domi is their top prospect. However, they won’t give him a look with their American Hockey League club after his OHL junior team was eliminated.
“Max is a little banged up from his recent playoff series, and we have decided rest/rehab is more important at this time than finishing his playing season in Portland,” Coyotes General Manager Don Maloney said in a press release.
The Portland Pirates, the AHL team of the Coyotes, are fighting for the last playoff spot in the AHL’s eastern conference. Surely a player like Domi would help, and he will also likely be playing in the AHL next season since Canadians 20 or older are allowed in the league.
Next season, of course, the Coyotes affiliate will be in Springfield rather than Portland.
Domi is one of the better prospects in hockey, not just the Coyotes. Him and Anthony Duclair will play together, likely on the same line, next season as two of the top prospects in the system.
Domi is battling some injury after he missed game two of his playoff series with the London Knights against the Erie Otters (home of super prospects Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome) that the Knights ultimately lost.
While Domi did his part in the series, scoring nine points in the four game sweep of his Knights, he had an even more spectacular regular season. In 57 regular season contests Domi captained the Knights with 102 points. Those 102 were a part of 331 he had in his Knights career that came to an end with the playoff series.
Domi could have gotten his first pro experience with the Pirates and played in another playoff series, but in the end the Coyotes decided it was best for their prospect to rest his injuries and prepare for what will be a big 2015-2016 season for him.
Of course, Domi could end up on the Coyotes instead of the Springfield Falcons next season if he can prove himself in training camp. Domi has been to two Coyotes training camps and has played in a couple of preseason games only to be sent back to his junior team every time.
Arizona will likely hold the second pick in the NHL draft so he could find himself teammates with McDavid, the star of the team that just swept Domi’s Knights.