The season is quickly approaching, which means it’s time to look towards the future. We do that every year with the Five For Howling 25 Under 25, ranking the Coyotes’ best players under 25. For this year’s rankings involve scores from James Reeve (@JamesRJReeve), Mike Gould (@miketgould), Haynes Evans (@HaynesPEvans), Matthew Jacobson (@TheAZSportsGuy), and Carl Pavlock.
Liam Kirk
2022-23 League: Liiga (Jukurit)/ECHL (Atlanta Gladiators)
Games Played: 25/15
Goals: 7/5
Assists: 12/6
Highest Rating: 14
Lowest Rating: Not Rated
Well, this particular placement on this year’s list would certainly look different had this past week’s events taken place a month earlier. Liam Kirk was drafted by the Arizona Coyotes in the seventh round (189th overall) of the 2018 Draft and brought with him the hopes of an entire nation.
However, fast forward to today, and Kirk is no longer a part of the Coyotes organization after they placed him on unconditional waivers earlier this week, allowing him the freedom to choose his next move and forge his own future path.
It’s a disappointing turn of events for the Maltby, Yorkshire native who performed very well in Canadian major juniors after being drafted, putting up 47 goals and 97 total points in 110 regular season appearances for the Peterborough Petes.
From there, fans hoped Kirk would step up to the AHL and play regularly with the Tucson Roadrunners to further his development, with eyes firmly set on breaking into the NHL. What followed, however, was a series of extremely unfortunate events that put Kirk’s development back in a way that has seen the Coyotes opt to move on from him.
First came the pandemic, which shut down hockey in North America quite firmly, with the NHL playing a shortened season in 2021 and playing opportunities limited across the globe. Kirk featured in both Sweden and the UK that year, putting up good numbers in the EIHL series (20 points in 10 games), while his stint in the Swedish third tier saw him come close to a point-per-game.
A stellar showing at the World Championships followed, with Kirk finishing the tournament as the top goalscorer, with nine points (seven goals) in seven games played for Great Britain. This positive end to the year saw Kirk build up enough momentum to start the 2021-22 campaign with the Roadrunners.
However, he would only feature in eight games before suffering a season-ending injury. He had three points (two goals, one assist) in those games. Without Kirk, Great Britain also suffered relegation from the World Championships, sending them back to Division 1A.
The following season, it was clear the Coyotes organization’s interest in Kirk had cooled significantly, and he made just one appearance for the Roadrunners despite the team not performing particularly well early in the campaign.
This saw Kirk sent down to the Atlanta Gladiators of the ECHL, where he registered five goals and 11 points through 15 regular season games. Discontent with the level of competition, Kirk earned himself a loan move to the prestigious SM-Liiga in Finland, where he suited up for Jukurit in hopes of performing well and getting things back on track.
Through 25 games, Kirk performed to a good standard and had 19 points (seven goals, 12 assists) by the time the season was over. After a better end to what had started out as a disappointing year, Kirk once again shone for Great Britain, guiding them to a Division 1A gold medal and promotion back to the top level once again, with three goals and 10 points in just five games for his country.
Despite this, the Coyotes were clearly already set in their minds that Kirk would no longer have a role with their minor league affiliates. With his trade value virtually nonexistent, the Coyotes simply cut ties with Kirk and have allowed him to seek new ventures.
This comes in the form of a spell in the Czech Extraliga with HC VERVA Litvínov. Kirk becomes the first British player to join the club and will look to play meaningful, consistent regular season hockey for the first time in almost three years. Should he perform well in what is considered the third-best league in Europe, he will undoubtedly have opportunities to step up to bigger leagues and could still find his way back to North America with a different team or even simply on an AHL deal.
He’s only 23, so he has plenty of hockey ahead of him, and the European leagues have become a hotspot for teams looking to take gambles of high-performing players, with several NHL teams bringing players over even in their mid-to-late twenties to see if they can uncover another diamond in the rough.
For Kirk, it’s a genuine fresh start and a real opportunity to advance in his career. He will continue to feature internationally for his country, and a solid regular season and showing at the World Championships is exactly what he needs to try and catch some people’s eyes heading into next summer. It’s a genuine shame it did not work out in the desert, but hopefully, this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Liam Kirk in North America.