The first day of the 2020 NHL Draft came and went Tuesday, with the Arizona Coyotes making no move to get into the first round.

It wasn’t hard to see how difficult that was for Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong, who because of an agreement made prior to taking the Coyotes’ job last month had no draft input and will not when the next six rounds take place Wednesday.

“This felt like Christmas for everybody else and it felt like we were on the 28th of December,” Armstrong said. “It was an awful day for us in the sense that I don’t think we were ready as an organization to kind of get involved in the draft, in the first round.”

Armstrong, director of amateur scouting Darryl Plandowski and special assistant Brian Daccord were not allowed to take part in Day 1, having done draft preparation work for their previous clubs before being brought to Arizona by Armstrong. That left newly hired associate director of amateur scouting Ryan Jankowski and front office staff that remained from the team’s previous GM regime to oversee the first day.

As it turned out, the Coyotes watched most of the rest of the NHL draft war rooms happily announce their picks on national television. Their first-round pick was used by the New Jersey Devils, who acquired it in exchange for Taylor Hall, now about to become an unrestricted free agent.

Armstrong said it was hard to move into the first round with teams seemingly more intent on holding on to their picks. But he feels there are options the team has to get an earlier round pick than the highest one currently in the Coyotes’ possession, No. 111 overall in the fourth round.

“We’re going to explore everything. Obviously I can’t participate, but I certainly can keep my hands in the trades,” Armstrong said. “The thing that we have in the organization is we don’t want to let a whole year go by and not have any prospects come into our organization. We need one player out of this draft. There’s no excuses.”

Arizona also has a pick in the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds Wednesday. Day 2 of the draft starts at 8:30 a.m. Arizona time. 

MORE: Arizona Coyotes unveil 25th anniversary logos, uniform patches featuring throwback look

The trade market for current Coyotes players has stagnated, Armstrong indicated, and a deal to send captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson to the only two teams his camp apparently prefers to go to, the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins, is one that might not be made.

Ekman-Larsson and his agent set a deadline of Friday, the same day NHL free agency officially begins, for the Coyotes to trade him. If there is no deal, he intends to remain in Arizona, agent Kevin Epp told TSN in Canada Tuesday morning.

“When you have the no-trade clause, I guess you can do what you want. They set deadlines, too. There’s nothing I can do to control that,” Armstrong said. “That’s just something that they wanted to get accomplished, and I guess they did on their end.”

Even if no trade is worked out, Armstrong feels there won’t be hard feelings from the veteran defenseman.

“Oliver Ekman-Larsson is a great person, he’s our captain. It’s a situation where his agent is doing his best for him and what he can and what he thinks is right, and we’re doing what’s best for our organization,” Armstrong added. “Two good sides, so it’s just one of those things that it will work itself out in the end, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson is a professional, so I know that no matter what happens he’ll make the best of it, both sides of it.”

Get in touch with Jose Romero at [email protected]. Find him on Twitter at @RomeroJoseM.