Leave it to Kypreos to find a way to throw shade on Ottawa.
The article doesn't include the original quote. You should take it with a grain of salt given you did not hear the original radio piece yourself.
Those write-ups usually aim to generate clicks. If Kypreos said "I would think that Ottawa might explore trading Chychrun, Chabot is going to be difficult to move, and they have too many left-hand defensemen" that gets written up as "Ottawa putting Chychrun on the trade block?", not as "Kypreos speculates that Ottawa should consider trading Chychrun at the deadline" because the former generates more clicks.
With the above said, it shouldn't be surprising either way if they do shop him. Chabot might be impossible to move with his contract. There is no guarantee Chychrun stays with a basement team that as of now looks to possibly be in need of a major re-tool.
Even with how excited he was to come to his hometown, he spent his entire career on a non-playoff team. He may want to finally move to a contender.
He was also the big acquisition of the former GM. With a new GM coming in this summer, they may feel the need to give him some flexibility with both cap and assets to re-tool the team in the image of his choice. Moving Chychrun would get them long-term cap by proxy through not re-signing him, and it would also get them multiple 1st and 2nd round picks that they could use to re-tool with this summer.
With the cap going up, and Chychrun almost a point per game as a top pairing D, in a worst-case scenario to re-sign him, you're looking at 9.5M x 8 years with an NMC and signing bonuses. This isn't to say they shouldn't or won't keep him at that number, but with all of the above considered, it shouldn't be a big shock if they shop him at the deadline or in the summer. They clearly need to make changes.
