Coyotes fire Assistant GM/Director of Scouting Lindsay Hofford

Earlier today the Arizona Coyotes fired their Director of Scouting and Assistant General Manager Lindsay Hofford.

Hofford had been with the Coyotes since 2018 and has served in the same role for the past two years.

Scouting has been an issue for the Arizona Coyotes for a long time. Look no further than the Coyotes draft history and number of players who have not lived up to their draft positioning.

Although he had only been at the job for two seasons, there did appear to be improvements. Under Hofford the Coyotes drafted Jan Jenik was drafted in the third round, Ivan Prosvetov in the fourth round, and Matias Maccelli in the fourth round, hopefully, the start of the Coyotes finding more talent in the later rounds.

You rarely see a new general manager come in and not make a single change. It’s part of the reason you hire someone new rather than promoting from within. The organization needs a fresh set of eyes to evaluate how they want to move forward.

General Manager Bill Armstrong is known for his time with the St. Louis Blues and the handling of their scouting department before becoming the assistant general manager. It makes sense that he would start with the scouting department, it is likely the department he knows best.

It is still too early to know if this is the start of sweeping changes for the franchise, or if this will be the only major move that Armstrong makes his first offseason with the Coyotes.