from Sarah McLellan of azcentral sports,

Arizona dismissed longtime captain Shane Doan, shipped goalie Mike Smith to a division rival and mutually parted ways with coach Dave Tippett – all in the span of a dizzying week that undoubtedly signaled a new direction.

While the Coyotes hope for growth and progress, they haven’t set a specific expectation for where they'll slot in amid the ultra-competitive Western Conference.

What they have figured out, though, is that developing their character as a hockey team is Priority No. 1 as training camp opens Thursday with medicals and fitness testing.

“I think that’s more important before any expectations,” first-year coach Rick Tocchet said. “I couldn’t give you, ‘Hey, we want this many points or we want to do this, we want to do that.’ The only thing I can tell you is I want to establish an identity. When teams play the Arizona Coyotes, this is their identity – this is who they are. That’s the most important thing for our organization and myself and players to establish.”

Tocchet wants the Coyotes to be fast and poised. The team’s youngsters should help with the former, while the experience added in the summer targets the latter. Both will need to contribute to another attribute Tocchet covets: relentlessness.

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