first two seasons, including a nine-win season in 1980–81 that is still the worst in franchise history. However, they recovered fairly quickly, making the playoffs 11 times in the next 15 seasons. But the Jets only won two playoff series, largely due to being in the same division as the powerful Edmonton Oilers and Calgary Flames. Because of the way the playoffs were structured for much of their Winnipeg run, the team was all but assured of having to defeat either the Oilers or the Flames (or both) to reach the Conference Finals. In 1984–85, for instance, they finished with the fourth-best record in the NHL with 96 points, at the time their best as an NHL team. However, they were swept by the Oilers in the division finals. Two seasons later, they dispatched the Flames in the first round, only to be swept again by the Oilers in the division finals. The franchise would not win another playoff series for 25 years. The Jets ran into financial trouble when player salaries began spiraling up in the 1990s; this hit the Canadian teams particularly hard. Winnipeg was the second-smallest market in the NHL for most of the Jets' existence and became the smallest after the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver in 1995 to become the Colorado Avalanche. In addition, the club's home arena, Winnipeg Arena, was one of the smallest in the league; seating just under 15,400 people. It was over 40 years old and had no luxury suites. Despite strong fan support, owner Barry Shenkarow was forced to put the team on the market. Unfortunately, several attempts to keep the team in Winnipeg fell through. In December 1995, Jerry Colangelo, owner of the National Basketball Association's Phoenix Suns; Phoenix businessmen Steven Gluckstern and Richard Burke; and a local investor group purchased the team with plans to move it to Phoenix for the 1996–97 season. After the franchise considered "Mustangs", "Outlaws", "Wranglers" and "Freeze", a name-the-team contest yielded the nickname "Coyotes", which finished ahead of the second-place "Scorpions". Gluckstern and Burke had initially planned to move the team to Minneapolis-St. Paul, which had just lost the Minnesota North Stars in 1993. However, they opted to move to Phoenix when they were unable to secure a lease for Minneapolis' Target Center. St. Paul was ultimately awarded an expansion team in 2000, the Minnesota Wild. Early years in Phoenix (1996–2005) In the