ARIZONA COYOTES
‘Yotes Notes: forward Max Domi sporting new hairdo
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Coyotes forward Max Domi took the podium at media day on Thursday sporting a new look. Gone was the shaggy beard for which his father, Tie Domi, gave him endless grief. He also had a new, close-cropped hairdo.
All Adidas everything. #MediaDay pic.twitter.com/YAKA1IosDu
— Arizona Coyotes (@ArizonaCoyotes) September 14, 2017
“I just tend to switch up my look quite often. I decided to clean it up,” Domi said. “I was going to grow my hair out but it doesn’t look too good. I have the worst hair in the NHL probably when it comes to the feel of it. It’s just really thick, really curly. You can’t really go with the long hair, the flow look because it just ends becoming an Afro. Not that there’s anything wrong with an Afro, but I didn’t really want to go with that. It doesn’t fit in the helmet too well, especially when you already have a big head.
“I decided to keep her clean and you know what? I think it shapes my head nice. Just a little bit of a puff on the top; a little bit of character. Everything else is just a nice fade.”
Domi blamed his dad, Tie, for his big head and bad hair.
“Tough genes for the hair, that’s for sure,” he said.
Domi shaved his beard in July to support diabetes awareness, a cause close to his heart since he suffers from the disease. He said Thursday he raised about $70,000.
CAMP CUTS
Coach Rick Tocchet was asked how quickly he would make roster cuts at training camp.
“If you ask every head coach they want it tomorrow,” Tocchet said. “I want my team tomorrow. I want to do my systems now. I want to do everything now but in all fairness, you’ve got to let it play out. There’s jobs open. It’s not fair to a player that has a chance to show something and he has a bad game and all of the sudden you’re out of here.
“Saying that, especially the last two, three (preseason) games, I’d like to have basically our team together, at least 90 percent. I really think a good start for our hockey club is paramount. I’d like to really get out of the gate fast.”
NAMING A CAPTAIN
Tocchet reiterated there is no timeline for naming a captain.
“For me, it’s a day-to-day thing,” he said. “I don’t know when I’m going to name one; when we’re going to name one.
“I look in that room and I see a lot of leadership in there. You’ve got (Derek) Stepan, you’ve got (Niklas) Hjalmarsson, you’ve got the guys from last year. It will sort itself out. I don’t have a timetable.”
Defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson has been mentioned as another possibility to fill the role Shane Doan held for 14 years.
“It’s hard to fill that void,” Ekman-Larsson said. “I don’t think you’re going to find the same leader. I think you can lead in different ways. You don’t have to be the guy who’s screaming and yelling at people, but I have learned a lot from him from just being around him. I kind of want to be that leader, but we will see. Doesn’t really matter if I get the C or the A, I’m going to be the same guy and be same leader in the room.”
LOOSE PUCKS
— General manager John Chayka did not set a timeline on Thursday for defenseman Jakob Chychrun’s return from knee surgery, but he reiterated the injury was not season-ending. Chayka said Chychrun was at Gila River Arena on Thursday but he is still “a ways off” from skating. “Until he starts skating it’s kind of difficult to give an update,” Chayka said.
— All of the Coyotes’ players passed their physicals on Thursday except defenseman Jakob Chychrun. That lists included center Brad Richardson who sustained a broken right tibia and fibula last season and has been on injured reserve since November.
— The Coyotes announced their first cuts on Thursday Nine players who took part in rookie camp will not participate in veterans camp: Tyler Coulter, Anthony DeMeo, Max Gerlach, Cordell James, Adam Marsh, James Phelan, Matthew Philip, Jeffrey Truchon-Viel and Hayden Verbeek.
