The first few Arizona Coyotes free agent signings this offseason brought the grit and "prickly" type of players with some skill general manager Bill Armstrong sought.
Armstrong, already enjoying his new desert surroundings, used the term to compare the kind of players he added in forming his vision of the Coyotes' identity to a plant familiar to all in the Valley: a cactus.
The most recent couple of additions brought a little of that, plus a little more of a scoring punch to the mix. At least that's the hope for the Coyotes, who although they retained their scoring forwards in Conor Garland, Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Christian Dvorak and Phil Kessel, have an entirely new group of forwards that will add depth to their second-through-fourth lines.