Two years ago, there was some fear that the Phoenix Coyotes were not long for the state of Arizona.

Their owner, Richard Burke, didn't like the arena setup and was tired of fighting with city fathers to strike a new deal. Local buyers seemed limited to a real estate guy who couldn't find enough partners. The team was on its third coach in four seasons and had a dysfunctional locker room, an embattled general manager and a holdout goalie.

A move to Portland seemed like a viable solution to one of the NHL's biggest messes.

And yet today, the Coyotes are one of the league's best success stories. The ownership group is in place, ground has been broken on a new arena in Glendale, and management is firmly in control. And top all of that off, the Coyotes were in the playoffs about three years ahead of schedule.

"You come in and just marvel at what they have been able to do," said new team president Jim Lites, who left the Dallas Stars last month. "You have an idea from the outside of what might be going on, but to get inside and actually see it, it's amazing. This is a very motivated group working every day to make things better. And it's paying off."

While the Coyotes' run in the playoffs was a quick five games that ended Friday in San Jose, they have done more than anyone could have imagined in one year. In their two home playoff games, they filled the arena with wild fans and made the words "White Out" part of daily jargon. What's more, they set records for television viewership and generally became the darlings of a town still gripped by baseball fever.

"You look around here and it's a lot like Dallas was when we got there in 1993," Lites said. "In fact, it's even better. They have a foundation here to build on, we were starting from scratch. But you see a lot of similarities, a lot of the same demographics that helped us build what we have built there."

What has been built in Dallas is a $430 million arena that is packed every game. There are 17,000 season ticket holders in Dallas and a fan base that seems able to hold steady even during tough times like the Stars are experiencing. Ten years ago, there was close to no hockey following.

What Lites and his crew did was bring in a team with a solid foundation that already had a solid hockey management group. That was more important than anything.

"Winning," he said, "is the key to everything."

That said, management also made some smart decisions in helping to build the fan base. The Stars built local rinks and helped expand the opportunities to play rec league hockey for both youth and adults. They helped build the high school hockey leagues, started street hockey programs and jumped into every charity function they could.

Lites, who was born and raised in Michigan and served as Red Wings executive vice president for 11 years, said that Texas wasn't that different from Michigan.

"They don't play outside there as much as you think," he said in 1993. "Kids play their games at indoor rinks up there just the same as they would down here."

Or out in Phoenix.

The pieces are in place for the Coyotes to surge forward just like the Stars. Steve Ellman, the real estate guy who had trouble closing the deal a year or so ago, now has an ownership group that appears to be brimming with cash. Led by Jerry Moyes and buoyed by the ever-growing respect for Wayne Gretzky as a businessman, the Coyotes now can close just about any deal that needs to be done in a mater of weeks. They have a new arena on the way. They have a new president who already is striking up the ticket-selling band. They have a team that can win.

Cliff Fletcher might be one of the most underrated minds in hockey and his acquisitions of Danny Markov, Paul Mara, Daymond Langkow, Ladislav Nagy, Michal Handzus and Mike Johnson were smart and economical. That's six out of the Coyotes' top 10 scorers -- and their combined 2001-02 salary of $7.5 million is less than either former Coyotes Keith Tkachuk ($8.3 million) or Jeremy Roenick ($8.5 million) will make this season.

In dumping Tkachuk, Roenick, Dallas Drake, Keith Carney, Nikolai Khabibulin and Jyrki Lumme, the Coyotes seemed to be giving up. Instead, they were digging in. By changing the personality of the team, Phoenix became hungrier. By making some smart moves and trusting players he knew well from his previous jobs in Toronto and Tampa Bay, Fletcher was building the base for the future. Fletcher's first move was to hire Dave Draper as vice president of scouting. The man who helped stock the Colorado Avalanche with all of its young talent now has a chance to do the same thing in Phoenix. But as much as Fletcher has done, his greatest attribute might be that he trusts Gretzky enough to take a step back. When Gretzky said he wanted to hire Mike Barnett as the team's GM, Fletcher knew exactly what was in the works.

Barnett -- one of the NHL's most successful agents -- will have the ear of just about every free agent in the league. When the Coyotes decide to invest a little more money -- and that might be sooner than you think -- Barnett could become the league's top recruiter.

The blueprint is there for success. In Dallas, the Stars built with an economical base and then pushed the team over the top with the free-agent signings of Ed Belfour and Brett Hull. You might take notice that they made their run at the Cup even before a new arena was built.

The Coyotes are still trying to smartly handle an acquired debt. That could mean they still try to build their team on a budget. But this run into the playoffs shows the folks in Phoenix just how quick a franchise can turn around. The base is in place for things to move ahead in the desert. Ownership is stable, management is smart, players are motivated.

"From top to bottom, the present day is really good," Gretzky told the Arizona Republic after Friday's playoff elimination loss in San Jose, "And the future is even better."

Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.