Chayka, Coyotes soured on each other quickly
Where did it all go wrong?
A once harmonious Coyotes front office is now in ruins after Coyotes President of Hockey Operations and General Manager John Chayka informed the club he was terminating his contract.
Chayka becomes the second high-level executive to leave the organization in the last few months following the exit of Ahron Cohen, who served as the team’s president and CEO up until May.
Although there are conflicting accounts regarding the events that led to Chayka’s sudden departure from the Coyotes, one thing that remains clear is that both sides are extremely unhappy.
As one NHL source asked rhetorically: “Have you ever heard of a general manager quitting just as their team is about to enter the playoffs?”
Indeed, the Coyotes boarded a flight on Sunday bound for Edmonton, the bubble city for the Western Conference portion of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Coyotes are scheduled to open their best-of-five series against the Nashville Predators on Aug. 2.
Chayka will not be there. Why? Well, it depends on whom you ask.
According to one NHL source with direct knowledge of the situation, an NHL owner reached out to Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo requesting permission to speak with Chayka.
That account that directly contradicts what another source previously told which was that the professional opportunity was not with another team.
Meruelo communicated that Chayka was under contract and it was his understanding that Chayka was happy and committed to Arizona, one source said. Chayka would reiterate those feelings to his owner in the following days and eventually convinced Meruelo to “begrudgingly” allow Chayka permission to speak with the interested team in part because “he had been allowed to do so in the past,” the source said.
A short time later, the source said Chayka approached the Coyotes with a job offer and made it clear that he wanted out, a revelation that “floored” Meruelo, per the source, who added that Meruelo made efforts to keep Chayka on board.
Another source said Meruelo simply retracted permission once the offer became serious.
One source said Chayka began to feel conflicted in performing certain duties of his job and suggested to Meruelo and new Coyotes President and CEO Xavier Gutierrez that they should take a vested interest in negotiating with agents and players.
This led to Chayka setting up a dinner meeting between Meruelo, his son, Alex Jr., Gutierrez and freeagent-to-be Taylor Hall, the source said.
However, a separate source told that Chayka not only didn’t set up the meeting, but that he wasn’t aware of it at all and didn’t find out about it until the next day.
Most agree that this is when the urgency of the situation began to peak. While one source suggested that Chayka was miffed at being left in the dark with respect to the Hall meeting, another source said that – despite the Coyotes suggesting the sides wait until season’s end to facilitate a solution – Chayka pushed for a release, cleaned out his office and took himself out of COVID-19 testing protocol, effectively removing his eligibility to travel to Edmonton.
The relationship deteriorated even further when, as one source claimed, Chayka “misrepresented” his job offer to the Coyotes, presenting it to Meruelo and Gutierrez as “something larger, something at a different level within an ownership group.”
In response, according to the source, the Coyotes informed Chayka that he would be in violation of his contract to accept a position within another team’s hockey operations department.
“That’s when it fell apart,” the source said. Chayka is now currently in a contract dispute with the Coyotes, one that may end up being adjudicated by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, according to a report by Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. There is a good chance both sides will argue the other violated terms of the contract.
Chayka has only addressed the situation in a statement on Sunday where he claimed the situation ownership had created meant staying with the club had become “an impossibility.”
The Coyotes, meanwhile, expressed their outrage publicly in a statement where they claim Chayka “quit” on the organization and its fans.
As messy as the Coyotes v. Chayka saga is already, the eventual airing of grievances and respective dragging of names through the mud is expected to get much, much worse.