Chychrun committed to Coyotes
Defenseman latest to sign onto long-term plan
There are a lot of steps to get where the Coyotes are trying to go. And in signing yet another player to a long-term deal, they’ve taken another key step along the way.
The Coyotes announced a six-year contract extension for defenseman Jakob Chychrun on Tuesday. Chychrun is the third player in the last several months whom the club has extended for at least the next six seasons.
Chychrun, who is now under contract through the 2025 season, joins Christian Dvorak (2025) and Oliver Ekman-Larsson (2027) as Coyotes to commit to the long-term vision of the club. Additionally, the Coyotes have seven players already signed through the 2020-21 season, including Antti Raanta, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Derek Stepan and Clayton Keller.
“We felt strongly about a good young player with keeping in mind how we build out our team moving forward that we keep him in the fold here,” Coyotes President of Hockey Operations and General Manager John Chayka said. “Obviously he’s a key piece and a core player who, along with Oliver EkmanLarsson on the back end, we think we can build around.
“I think the opportunity to extend that player into the long term was something we were happy to do in terms of the cost certainty in building out our team into the future.”
Chychrun is still just 20 years old and has undergone as many knee surgeries (two) as years of service in the NHL. He played in just 50 games last season before tearing his ACL for the second time. Chychrun returned from his second surgery on Tuesday but is currently day-today with an unrelated upper-body injury.
Regardless, the Coyotes evidently were confident enough in Chychrun to lock him up for the foreseeable future. Chychrun’s entry-level deal expires after this season, so his new deal will kick in prior to the 2019-20 campaign and will pay him an average of $4.6 million per season.
“In terms of projection,” Chayka said. “Jakob’s got a long history of being an elite player for his age group. We know his injury history, and that was something we took seriously in terms of looking into and understanding it better. Ultimately, we felt like the price was right and it allows us a lot of flexibility and what we feel is a value deal moving forward.”
When Chychrun has been healthy, he’s exhibited the kind of ceiling that a top-pair defenseman can possess. He’s tallied 11 goals and and 23 assists in 118 career games thus far. He’s shown an ability to transition the puck at an elite level and serve as a proficient point-man on the power play.
Chychrun will undoubtedly have to work to continue the improvement of his defensive game, but those areas are often last for young players to refine. Either way, the Coyotes are electing to buy into the promise of their former first-round pick in 2016.
The contract is eerily similar to that belonging to Christian Dvorak, who signed his own six-year extension that will pay him an average of $4.45 million for the same amount of seasons as Chychrun.
Like Chychrun, Dvorak doesn’t have a long NHL history on which to form a career projection. Instead, the Coyotes have chosen to bet on their players.
“A lot of these deals are projection deals,” Chayka said. “For us, there’s a market out there and there are certain aspects of that market you have to be cognisant of and that are relevant in terms of contract negotiations. There are certain elements of how we want to build out our team moving forward and how we want to build out our player capital. That’s how we looked at this situation and we found kind of an intersection between the player’s goal and what he’s trying to do and build his career and certainly how we’re trying to build our team.”
Chayka has preached the philosophy of “premium positions” since his ascension to general manager in 2016. By bringing in players like Stepan and Raanta, drafting players like Pierre-Olivier Joseph and Barrett Hayton, and extending players like Dvorak and Chychrun, the Coyotes are building out a foundation on which they can later supplement with players like Michael Grabner and Vinnie Hinostroza.
“Anytime you’re in a situation where you’re trying to build a team, you’ve got to build traction and momentum,” Chayka said. “You’ve got to build around big rocks: the starting goalie, some premier defensemen, and 200-foot centermen. Those are the toughest assets to acquire. So to get these guys to buy in and who want to be here and are willing to take fair deals to better help the team, that’s what we’re after.
“All these things kind of lend themselves to one thing, and that’s a mosaic of momentum. These kind of big-rock signings is a part of that.”
Chayka’s construction project within the Coyotes organization has been well-documented, but it still remains an ongoing process. What the club has already changed, though, is perception.