top of page

Salt Lake City About to Land NHL’s Coyotes (Minus Their Name)

Apr 15, 2024

Ryan Smith’s two-year quest to land Salt Lake City an NHL franchise will likely conclude later this week, although it won’t be the expansion team his Smith Entertainment Group lobbied for publicly in January.

Instead, it will be the Arizona Coyotes—or at least the players, coaches and some other staffers of the franchise that has called the Valley of the Sun home since 1996. Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo, Smith, and the NHL are nearing the end of negotiations of a $1 billion sale of the team that will play under a new name at Salt Lake City’s Delta Center starting next season, sources with knowledge of the transaction tell Front Office Sports.

Meruelo keeps the Coyotes name and will have five years to build an NHL arena with the league’s promise of making the Phoenix market the home of an expansion team, the sources confirmed. SportsNet was the first outlet to report the setup.

Source: Front Office Sports

bottom of page