Clayton Keller: NHL.com seems to (accidentally) reveal he’ll be Coyotes captain

The Arizona Coyotes have been without a captain for two years now. After trading Oliver Ekman-Larsson to the Canucks in July 2021, the club didn’t name a successor, and two years later, there still isn’t one.

That said, if there’s one player who deserves to be there, it’s undoubtedly Clayton Keller. Despite the bizarre saga during which his father seemed to assert that the forward would never play in Arizona again(before defending himself by saying he’d been hacked), he’s clearly the face of the franchise right now.

While the formation around him is constantly changing, Keller is a mainstay in the desert and is known to be very involved in the community, having been part of the group that championed the arena project in Tempe (which was ultimately rejected by the people).

Clearly, he seems to like Arizona, despite everything that’s going on.

However, in a text published by Jon Lane yesterday, there seems to have been an accidental announcement, while in a piece where the journalist talks about André Tourigny, he seems to mention that Keller is the team captain.

The text, which you can consult HERE, has since been modified: the word “attacker” is used instead of “captain”.

It could very well be a simple mistake, but if so, it’s a bit surprising that it was corrected so quickly when we find another error in the same paragraph: Matias Maccelli signed a three-year contract, not a two-year one.

And at the time of writing, the error concerning Maccelli’s contract is still present in the text.

If Keller is indeed named captain, he clearly won’t have stolen his job. Now, if the club wanted to plan a big announcement, the journalist may have let the cat out of the bag a little, and clearly, that can’t be good news for the Arizona team.

In short, we’ll have to wait and see, but one of the eight captain positions still vacant could very well be filled by Clayton Keller in Arizona. This would be a fine distinction for one of the few players who hasn’t abandoned ship in Arizona, and who is one of the most underrated forwards on the circuit.

In gusts

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