Coyotes' Chayka: Holland acquisition was worth the risk

The Arizona Coyotes have bolstered their lineup down the middle.

In acquiring pivot Peter Holland from the Toronto Maple Leafs in a Friday deal, the team strengthened a group which this season has featured veteran Martin Hanzal, winger-turned-center Jordan Martinook, and a host of rookies, namely Christian Dvorak, Laurent Dauphin, and Tyler Gaudet.

"The risk we had going into this season was certainly up the middle of the ice, which isn't ideal, but it's also where we've expended a lot of our resources and key resources to try to acquire those types of players up the middle," Coyotes general manager John Chayka told Sarah McLellan of The Arizona Republic.

The Coyotes were hoping for more from their middle men, but that changed once Brad Richardson, who scored nine points in 16 games, broke his leg in mid-November, and 19-year-old Dylan Strome was returned to junior.

That left the Coyotes with a hole they hope to fill with the addition of Holland, who was looking for a change of his own.

Holland spent the last three seasons with the Maple Leafs, netting a $1.3-million contract extension this summer. But things didn't work out this year, with him appearing in just eight games through the season's quarter mark before asking for a move out of Hogtown.

Arizona sent a conditional sixth-round pick in 2018 to Toronto for Holland.

"This deal was about the proper risk-to-reward ratio," Chayka said. "It was about getting a player who, in limited opportunity and ice time, has been a relatively efficient, productive producer. That was the deal more than anything."