Trading Jakob Chychrun Is (Mostly) Pointless
The Arizona Coyotes, star of popular publication Corncob Hockey (and Other Shit) is back in the news again. The good news is that it’s not about how they might not have an arena, their small business tyrant owner is making another nepotism hire or how some losers from Quebec want to bring back the Nordiques. The bad news is that it’s probably just as bad, since it involves the best player on the sad sack roster Bill Armstrong put together. Elliotte Friedman’s 32 thoughts column brought up that Bill Armstrong has been listening to offers for Jakob Chychrun (thought number 6)- an idea that makes a lot of sense but also just seems so pointless.
Now sure, the argument for trading Chychrun makes sense- a good parallel might be the Devils with Taylor Hall, who were in a similar situation when they acquired Hall. The best case scenario was that the team would improve thanks to all the high draft picks they’d make over those 4 years and Hall would stay. Instead everything went tits up and they ended up trading Hall for a bunch of magic beans to these same Coyotes as a rental. The Coyotes being proactive and trading Chychrun at the peak of his value would make a ton of sense in theory because they wouldn’t have to worry about the Sword of Damocles dropping on their heads at an inopportune time. And if they did trade Chychrun, they’d be able to add to their massive war chest of draft picks as well as adding some high end prospects to a prospect pool that’s got a lot of green talent.
Given that Bill Armstrong’s basically just built the team by just ripping the copper wire out of the team and selling it for pennies, trading Chychrun on its own isn’t exactly doing much on its own. Outside of Clayton Keller, there’s nothing much else on that roster that screams “future piece”. Nick Schmaltz is fine but he’s got a ludicrous, backloaded contract. Lawson Crouse is a decent role player who’s reputation as a prospect probably leads to him getting traded. Barrett Hayton is a mystery box. Other than that everyone else that’s interesting isn’t playing for them (Soderstrom, Garland, Josh Doan) or in the case of Conor Timmins, injured. Most of the guys on the roster are either washed veterans, “great stories” like Karel Vejmelka or Travis Boyd or functional hockey player Shayne Gostisbehre (also probably getting traded). Kyle Capobianco looks like he could be a solid guy but I’d be surprised if he’s a legit piece.
And the emphasis should be on “on it’s own” because ultimately, the Coyotes rebuild is going to require them to do something they’ve failed at pretty miserably, which is drafting and developing. Even if they do manage to do a good job drafting, the development aspect is what really matters. You can draft high all the time but it won’t matter if those players aren’t being put in a position to succeed or are kneecapped by inept coaching. Pittsburgh’s a great example- they have no draft picks, no notable prospects and yet they keep churning out Mark Donks and Buzz Flibbetts. If you’re bereft of talent and trading your best player, you better have some sort of plan when it comes to filling that void. There’s no point to hoarding picks that won’t yield immediate dividends- at some point Arizona will have to use those picks to proactively acquire talent to fill out the roster since a good chunk of their prospects aren’t going to be able to fill those roster spots out or just get thrown into the fire due to a lack of options.
Granted, these are all just rumours. For all we know Chychrun might be happy in Arizona and the quote from Friedman was more about Doug Armstrong seeing if there was that Godfather offer that would make him part with his crown jewel. But really it just seems pointless to even consider making such a move when your entire plan is currently hoarding magic beans.
