Coyotes Defenseman Jakob Chychrun Has A Lot Of Eyes On Him
By Jim Lynch
Jakob Chychrun might be one of the best potential trade deadline acquisitions we have seen in the past 20 years. The Arizona Coyotes defenseman is the full package, he is young, is on a good contract, and is a good defenseman that even a team on the outside of the playoffs wouldn’t make a mistake trading for.
For a while, it seemed like the Coyotes wanted to keep Chychrun in the plan for the future even while the team struggles right now, but he definitely has too much value on the trade market to not at least entertain the idea of a trade.
Chychrun has played in 26 games this season putting up seven points during that time. Those numbers are not fantastic but the defenseman is also a year removed from putting up 41 in 56 games and is averaging 24:50 minutes of ice time a night.
Chychrun is playing top pairing minutes in Arizona and even though he is on a bad team, his numbers are not horrible. His corsi numbers are above 46 percent which on this team is kind of shocking. I do not think anyone should expect his numbers to be amazing, especially when he is playing on a team like the Coyotes right now.
Players like Chychrun are not available at the deadline all that often. Personally, I still believe that he won’t get moved until the offseason as he is someone that is not going to be a rental with any team. Trading for Chychrun is going to be a move to help your team for years to come. He is a defenseman a franchise can build their team around as one of the core pieces.
On the cap side of things, Chychrun is only making 4.6 million, and that is for the next three years after this season. A team trading for Chychrun could get three and a half years of his service and at that time he would only be turning 26.
A team trading for Chychrun wouldn’t just set themselves up for this year, it would be a move that can set them up as contenders even two or three years down the line. All eyes are on the Coyotes top defensemen as he is one of the top players talked about when it comes to trades and news from around the league – the crazy thing is he hasn’t played since December 11th. Chychrun suffered an upper-body injury in December and was placed into COVID protocol on January 10th.
The Coyotes top defenseman will definitely be back in the lineup soon and don’t be surprised if a lot of opposing teams scouts start coming to their games to see if Chychrun would be worth the price to add to their lineup.