Chychrun was a -30 in the 23-24 season. Sure he looked good occasionally on offense but he was an AHLer on defense regardless of what side he played. Very hard to get value on a guy after that sort of performance.
Management UPDATE: Steve Staios GM and POHO, Dave Poulin Senior VP of Hockey Operations
- Thread starter God Says No
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Toronto does not need a $9 million Dman. Their D is fine, What they do need are 2 quality forwards when Marner leaves.
No doubt, it's hard to evaluate him but I wouldn't call him an embarrassment. Definitely disappointing considering how strong he is and all the weird meats he eats.
They're looking at what Dorion gave up for him, thinking the return should be similar. Not too many GMs out there with the same low IQ that Dorion had.
Tuna99
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- Sep 26, 2009
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Their D sucks, Toronto was outchanced every game of the playoffs because they can’t get the puck out or control play when they need to - if Tanev is your best Dman you are never winning the Cup
If the D’s problem is not being able to get the puck out of their end… Ekblad is not the answer.
Toronto needs an offensive, puck moving D-man. Ekblad is 2-way, but more defensive than offensive. That's one reason they have trouble scoring in the playoffs, no good puck mover on D. Most playoff teams have 1 great one or 2 good ones (like us).
113.5M cap is going to make some GMs do crazy things because they might justify inflated AAVs by anchoring them to how the fit under a 104.5-113.5M cap rather than a 95.5M cap. There might be someone who feels they are an Ekblad away from competing or winning, and justifies the extra 2M that way.
Most of the models to predict contracts that are out there on Capwages or other sites are fairly decent, but they aren't going to account for this factor. This is an unprecedented offseason. At least since the 2012 lockout, I don't think we've had a similar scenario where GMs know that they are getting almost a 20M cap raise within 2 seasons.
I agree with most of your criticism about why giving him a big contract with term might be ill-advised. I still don't think he is coming cheap. The tradeoff might be a higher AAV with less term, like 5 seasons. 5 seasons would ensure he becomes a UFA again at 34. That is important, because it avoids any 35+ contract restrictions, and with the cap probably being in the 120-130+ million range in 5 seasons, even if his play drops he might get more by signing another contract at that time than by going 7 years now on a lower AAV.
I don't in a million years think he would consider Ottawa, but it's curious that his agent Craig Oster is part of the Tkachuk dynasty. If GMs shy away from paying him because of risks related to his injury history, that might create a scenario where he would "settle" for Ottawa. I doubt it will come to that. RHD are hard to find. Someone will pay him 8M-10M.
Micklebot
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- Apr 27, 2010
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What source are you using for High danger chances? Because NST has Ottawa with 51 HDCF to Tor's 41 at 5v5. Money Puck has Ottawa at 11 to Tor's 9 (plus 30 medium danger shots to 33 so combined it's 41 to 42)
I forget where, but I read it the day after the series. Those aren't the exact numbers, but Toronto was ahead by 8. It could be high high danger chances, the source had a higher threshold. It wasn't 5 on 5, it was in all situations. My personal opinion was the Sens had more decent chances, but the Leafs had more really good chances.
Stolarz had a goals saved above average of 0, Ullmark - 3. After game 1, they were about equal. This aligns with Leafs having the advantage in great chances.
This is why I take advanced stats with a grain of salt, different sources have wildly different numbers sometimes. I forget who, but one site had a defenseman with a 30 defensive rating, the other like 75. You see this all the time. Advanced stats are so subjective.
Tuna99
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No, if Ottawa has the 6 games of playoff experience they have now and they run that series again we win easily. We lost from game 1 nerves and game 3 home crowd nerves.
I think the thing nobody is talking about is the Stolartz injury. Toronto never seemed to able to ride the momentum waves once he was out and he was their best player vs Ottawa - I think if the Leave had Stolartz they maybe win that series
Stolarz wasn’t the leafs best player. Toronto’s D blocked or forced missed nets at an incredible rate. Ottawa couldn’t get to the home plate area due to the length of their D.
Tuna99
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Series total They scored 19 goals, we scored 16 goals. Take out game 1 where we played like shit and we ourscored them 14-13 in the remaining 5 games. Toronto sucks.
HoweHullOrr
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Sanderson: 23:13 per game
Chabot: 23:03 per game
Chychrun: 22:23 per game
I can't imagine any scenario where he perceived 1 less shift per game, on average, as being firmly behind those 2. Let alone made so much of it that he sulked, played unmotivated and went through the motions because of it. I think his body language was the reflection of a disaster of a season. Nothing more, nothing less.
Unfortunately, we're the chumps who traded the guy for significantly less value because..."hockey trade" or whatever people are saying to justify this whole thing.
Dorion paid the proper value for Chychrun, the problem is he was a terrible fit and by the time we moved him he was a 1 year rental coming of an abysmal year where he looked completely lost defensively. Dorion screwed us but don't pretend his time in Ottawa didn't crush his value.
Toronto doesn't suck. In my opinion, Ottawa was one of the 4 best teams in the Eastern Conference.
Hard disagree.
From 2020-21 until 2023-24, he was 28th in points per game among defensemen with at least 200GP. Offensively, that's low-end #1D kinda production. His advanced stats, defensively, have him pretty much middle of the pack. Certainly not the cream of the crop defensively, on the level of guys like Makar, Hedman, Heiskanen, etc., but he was never expected to be on that level, never played to that level and certainly not paid to that level.
We sold "low" because of our GM. Plain and simple. You really gonna tell me that Washington just suddenly realized one day he was a $9M AAV defenseman? He was 16th in points among defenseman the day he signed that contract. He wasn't even the top-scoring defenseman on his own team, at the time. Washington knew exactly what they were getting. You don't trade for guys like him without a plan to sign an extension.
Our guy blinked. We lost the trade badly. Nothing we can do about it now but this idea that we had to trade him for so much less than his real value is just absurd.
BigRig4
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- Feb 22, 2014
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We didn’t have to trade him. But the alternative was him walking for nothing.
BondraTime
Registered User
Caps are going to regret that Chych contract bigtime
I'd have let him walk for nothing than sign him to that deal
I'd have let him walk for nothing than sign him to that deal
Chychrun going from returning only Jensen and a 3rd in the off-season to apparently being worth 72M over 8 years is insane.
That 11.2% shooting percentage playing on one of the biggest overachieving teams in the league got him overpaid big time.
If he scored on 6.9% of his shots like he did in Ottawa he'd only have 12 goals instead of 20, and his point totals would be similar to last season.
That 11.2% shooting percentage playing on one of the biggest overachieving teams in the league got him overpaid big time.
If he scored on 6.9% of his shots like he did in Ottawa he'd only have 12 goals instead of 20, and his point totals would be similar to last season.
At $7 million, Chychrun would've been fine and any team acquiring him probably knew it would take $7-8 million aav to get him signed long term. But he has to consistently hit 45+ points to be worth that deal. John Carlson outscored him and Chychrun had a really high shooting percentage.
Really wish Staios had gotten another later round pick from the Caps or even a prospect like Lapierre or Iorio on top of Jensen and 3rd, it'd help replenish our empty pipeline.
Really wish Staios had gotten another later round pick from the Caps or even a prospect like Lapierre or Iorio on top of Jensen and 3rd, it'd help replenish our empty pipeline.
