Coyotes’ Chychrun: steal of 2016 NHL draft
“Sometimes,” said NHL scout Dan Marr, “your draft year doesn’t go 100 per cent according to plan.”
That’s all there really is to say about Jakob Chychrun, who might have been disappointed when his stock plummeted on draft day, but is probably having a good laugh about it now after being told Wednesday he is staying with the Arizona Coyotes for the rest of the season.
Call the 16th overall pick the steal of the draft if you want. But Chychrun is a classic example of why scouts sometimes have very short memories and get it wrong.
“One of the things with Jakob is he’s been under the microscope since he was 14 years old and was one of the noted prospects from his birth year. I think some guys get into the spotlight for too long and it gives people a chance to criticize them and some were trying to poke holes in his game,” said Mark Glavin, assistant GM of the Ontario Hockey League’s Sarnia Sting, where Chychrun played last season. “We felt that he probably didn’t deserve to fall that far and he’s proving that right now. Credit Arizona for that pick.”
At this time last year, the 6-foot-2, 215-pound defenceman was considered the consensus No. 2 pick after Auston Matthews. But after a season in which he failed to make Canada’s world junior team and managed only 11 goals and 49 points for a Sting team that was upset in the first round of the playoffs, scouts began to sour on his potential.
Chychrun was no longer considered a top-three pick. He wasn’t even top three among defenceman, getting selected after Olli Juolevi (Vancouver, fifth overall), Mikhail Sergachev (Montreal, ninth), Jake Bean (Carolina, 13th) and Charles McAvoy (Boston, 14th), all of whom are back playing in junior or college. A total of 15 teams passed on him.
“He might have been on a roller-coaster ride at times,” Marr, chief scout for NHL Central Scouting, said prior to the draft. “Looking at the big picture, he brings all the skills and attributes of a bona fide top-two NHL defenceman.”
Eight games into his rookie season as of Wednesday, Chychrun is certainly living up to that description. He has one goal and three points, as well as a team-best plus-2 rating for the last-place Coyotes, who had allowed eight more goals than they had scored heading into a game against Nashville. In a 3-2 win against the San Jose Sharks Tuesday, Chychrun logged the third-most minutes on the team, playing on both the power play and penalty kill.
“He played 23 minutes last night,” head coach Dave Tippett told Arizona Sports reporter Craig Morgan. “Do you think we’re just going to say, ‘Hey, go away now?’”
Indeed, the Coyotes are more than happy to have Chychrun. In fact, the team traded up four spots in order to select him, which could end up becoming the best trade in franchise history.
Then again, it has only been eight games. And it has only been four months since the draft, so let’s hold off on calling Chychrun the best defenceman of his class. He might end up being that. Right now, he is simply the most mature or playing on a rebuilding team that has room and patience for him to develop.
Still, it isn’t the first time a player plummeted down the rankings only to prove teams wrong. In 2010, team after team passed on projected top-five pick Cam Fowler, whom Anaheim eventually selected 12th overall. He was one of five players that year to jump to the NHL from the draft floor and has appeared in the third-most games.
Like Fowler, who was on every scout’s radar since he was 15, Chychrun’s problem might have been that he peaked too early. He was the No. 1 pick in 2014 OHL draft and exploded onto the scene as a 16-year-old with 16 goals and 33 points in 42 games.
“His ability to take the puck and go is just outstanding,” Sting head coach and former NHL defenceman Derian Hatcher said last year. “That’s the first thing that everybody notices to be honest with you.”
Maybe if Chychrun had made Canada’s junior team, more would have seen him on the international stage and his stock wouldn’t have fallen so significantly. Maybe if the Sting had won Game 7 of their first-round playoff series, he would have had more time to impress scouts in the month before the draft. Either way, half the league’s GMs have to be asking their scouts why exactly did they pass on a player who is one of only five 2016 draftees (Matthews, Patrik Laine, Jesse Puljujarvi and Matthew Tkachuk included) playing in the NHL this season.
“I’ve been saying for a while I think I can play in this league,” Chychrun said.
No one doubts that anymore.