It’s no secret that the Arizona Coyotes have needed some offensive additions to their roster to become a playoff team. They did address that, at least to some extent, when they acquired both Phil Kessel (82 points) and Carl Soderberg (49 points). Yet, the team is still next to dead-last in goals scored this young season. Could the addition of Josh Ho-Sang help them?
Why Trading For Josh Ho-Sang May Help
Isles Career
Josh Ho-Sang is a 22-year-old forward who stands 6’0″, 173 pounds and is a right-shooting native of Toronto. He also wants to be traded from the New York Islanders. The controversial forward was placed on waivers on September 30th but was not claimed by any NHL team. He then sounded like he wasn’t going to report to his AHL Bridgeport Sound Tigers team but relented and agreed. His condition was he was willing to do anything to acquire a trade from the Islanders.
He has collected 24 points in 53 NHL games and has some potential. He was the Islanders’ 28th overall selection in the 2014 draft. While possessing good offensive puck handling skills along with speed, he needs more work on his defensive game.
It seems that he feels he’s not getting a good opportunity to play at the NHL level and even criticized the team for sending him to the AHL. In an interview back in October 2018 with Brett Cyrgalis of the New York Post, he mentioned, “I felt like they had their minds made up on what was going to happen and what the team was going to look like. It’s OK. They had the whole summer to plan that. I don’t know if you watched any of the games, but I didn’t play a lot. It’s OK. It is what it is.”
Who The Coyotes Could Trade
There’s been some speculation that the Coyotes have been asked about the availability of Christian Fischer over the summer. He is in his last year of this entry-level contract and hasn’t played horribly. However, he is just not quite there yet.
He participated in 161 NHL games with just 54 points and 29 goals. While he’s a much bigger player than Ho-Sang, his 0.34 points per game are not especially appealing. Ho-Sang has averaged 0.45 points per game and has some better possession statistics with a 51.3 Corsi for percentage and a Relative Corsi of +2.6. Josh Ho-Sang is a more accurate shooter carrying a 14 percent accuracy while Fischer lags behind with 10 percent.
The trade could be straight up as Ho-Sang just signed a one-year deal worth $874,125. Fischer’s contract is worth $821,666. While other youngsters like Christian Dvorak, Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, and Jakob Chychrun have all signed long-term contracts Fischer has not been signed. That says could say a lot about where management is with Fischer.
Fischer is scoreless in the four games he has played this season. His spot on the fourth line seems to have been taken by young Conor Garland who has three goals. He is fitting in very well so far on a line with Dvorak and Schmaltz. That may leave Fischer the odd man out. Especially if he doesn’t start showing some offence on a team in dire need of getting some goals in the net.
Closing Remarks
At some point, Ho-Sang will be moving on to a new team. Will it be the Arizona Coyotes? It seems like they have been very patient with Fischer and while he does take it to the net he doesn’t finish well enough. He’s big and can hold his own in the corners and in front of the net.
Now, he just needs to put it all together if he wants to stay in the desert. Ho-Sang is a much better offensive player and he could do well on the Coyotes’ roster who relies on speed and playmaking. A player for player swap where both teams get a reclamation project could work out very well both ways.
Nothing has been rumoured, however, it certainly has the potential to help both teams and give Josh Ho-Sang a fresh start.
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