What ever happened to John Chayka?

[Tom Polakis]

I doubt that he is blackballed, but no team is going to hire him as a GM. In addition to the combine issue, he botched a potential rebuild by sacrificing picks/prospects for players like Taylor Hall. Then he walked away from the job as they were entering the playoff qualifying round. It's a striking contrast with Bill Armstrong.

 

[Leon Lucius Black]

I can speak for 99.8% of people on here that we don't know or care what John Chayka is doing, as a result we should turn this into a Meghan Chayka thread.

 

[Sweetpotato]

If I remember correctly the rumor at the time of his departure was he was trying to accept a job offer in New Jersey as like president of hockey ops or involved in both Hockey and Basket ball.

I'd say it's a fair guess considering he was supposed to have a job lined up, that we never see him again involved in the NHL since he hasn't gotten one yet but maybe once Garry retires you could see him return.

 

[mkatcherin00]

NHL’s Youngest-Ever GM Reveals Some Hard Lessons Learned

John Chayka explains some of the hard-won education he he took away from his tenure with the Arizona Coyotes.

www.sportico.com

Damn, they have 30 franchises. I have friends who own different franchises (Tim Hortons, Subways, McDonalds, and Wendy's)

McDonalds is king. Depends on how busy your stores are, but he can clear a good 6 million a year after everything with 12-15 McDonald restaurants.

 

[biturbo19]

If you come in as an "outsider" that is already looked at that way, then proceed to lay a turd directly in the middle of everyone's collective vision and get yourself blacklisted for doing all kinds of illegal and scuzzy stuff...you're not going to get another chance at it.


Mike Gillis came in as an "outsider" and struggled at times with the angst a lot of other GMs had toward him. But he put together a darn good team that won a ton of games, to the point that if he wanted to...i think someone else would give him another chance.

Chayka came in, acted like he was better than everyone else because nerd stuff...and proceeded to put together a historically bad team for a bunch of years, and somehow break a bunch of long-standing NHL rules that cost his team in sanctions on top of it all. He basically flamed out as spectacularly as a GM possibly can. Nobody is going to want to associate with him or have his name associated with their program.



I'd wager his sister is a lot more likely to get some sort of shot with an NHL role than he is at this point. But they're both clearly complete grifters, more concerned with their image management than actually caring about hockey.

 

[tfong]

All I know is that there aren't enough Wendys' (objectively the best fast food place I will not be taking questions) in Toronto so he needs to get on this.

Not possible given you guys also have Panera bread.

 

[dirtydanglez]

Likely his name is mud and no-one wants him around.

Plus, his 'highly intelligent and educated ability to GM' was a turd-blasting disaster.

this is why analytics are only part of the picture

 

[Unbiased Fan]

I think people are crazy blaming him for the coyotes lack of success and not the ownership internal budgeting. I actually would hire him over 90% of the GMs in NHL. Give him a max budget and he will create a dynasty

 

[WarriorofTime]

Doubt he comes back. Young guy that was an analytics hot shot, not necessarily part of the old boys club that comes in and does stuff that ticks off the owners around the League. A bit like Hinkie but he was cheating at the Combine too. Owning that many Wendy's Franchises at such a young age suggests that he's rich and likely comes from a lot of money, so I doubt he needs to go beg and plead for mercy to go work a lower-level job in the Leafs or Rangers Analytics Department or something.

I think people are crazy blaming him for the coyotes lack of success and not the ownership internal budgeting. I actually would hire him over 90% of the GMs in NHL. Give him a max budget and he will create a dynasty

"internal budgeting" was punting away draft picks for Stepan/Raanta and a rental of Taylor Hall just to make the first round one time. Armstrong has really had to clean up his messes with the full scorched earth rebuild.

 

[Artemi Panarin]

I picture him as an analytical used car salesman.

 

[Jumptheshark]

he was and is a money guy. He mad several mistakes. He thought he was the smartest guy in the room and then with the illegal testing of players? He is a stats guy who just did not get certain parts of the game.

 

[joestevens29]

He's probably better as an assistant general manager or something. Has useful information to help guide some decisions, just can't use it as the end all.

 

[Unbiased Fan]

Doubt he comes back. Young guy that was an analytics hot shot, not necessarily part of the old boys club that comes in and does stuff that ticks off the owners around the League. A bit like Hinkie but he was cheating at the Combine too. Owning that many Wendy's Franchises at such a young age suggests that he's rich and likely comes from a lot of money, so I doubt he needs to go beg and plead for mercy to go work a lower-level job in the Leafs or Rangers Analytics Department or something.


"internal budgeting" was punting away draft picks for Stepan/Raanta and a rental of Taylor Hall just to make the first round one time. Armstrong has really had to clean up his messes with the full scorched earth rebuild.

So the owner tells him to push for playoffs with an awful team then what else can he do. I don’t understand how everyone else can’t realize there’s more internal pressure there then Toronto for him. They are the joke of the NHL and the owner probably said “go all in”

 

[jokesondee]

He sucked. He was an idiot who Arizona thought he was smarter than everyone else and proved he wasn't.

His sister is hot, though.

She looks great in Jets gear!

 

[RandV]

If you come in as an "outsider" that is already looked at that way, then proceed to lay a turd directly in the middle of everyone's collective vision and get yourself blacklisted for doing all kinds of illegal and scuzzy stuff...you're not going to get another chance at it.

The guy is likely not going to get a job again because of the stuff at the end, and was a really wierd hiring and probably shouldn't have had a GM job in the first place, but I think he gets way too much of a bad rap. Rather than "proceed to lay a turd" it's more like he wasn't able to polish a turd into gold. Again not a guy that should have gotten hired to GM right off the bat but when he did he kind of became the target for all the anti-analytical sentiment in the NHL community getting way more attention than he deserved generating a lot of indeterminable screeching noises. Like right in this threat there's a lot of hostile 'thought he was the smartest guy in the room' comments, how is that something quantifiable?

Perhaps the best case in point, it's now 3 seasons since he was fired and the coyotes are still just as shitty. How often do you hear about them now that Chayka isn't the GM? Do people even know how the Coyotes GM is now? I sure as hell don't.

From what I recall, he got a lot of flak for the Strome & Perlini for Schmaltz trade, but in the long run that's actually turned out well for them. His drafting was ragged on but Keller has brought it to another level this season and Hayton is looking like much less of a bust. On the positive side he did a good job revamping the Coyotes blueline and goaltending, but on the negative the Hall and Kessel acquisitions were busts. Overall, sounds like a pretty average GM resume that wouldn't get much distinction if he was a 60 year old from the old boys club rather than a 25 year old analyitics wiz kid.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Perhaps the best case in point, it's now 3 seasons since he was fired and the coyotes are still just as shitty. How often do you hear about them now that Chayka isn't the GM? Do people even know how the Coyotes GM is now? I sure as hell don't.

Perhaps if you weren't being deliberately uninformed on the topic, you'd realize that the current GM, Armstrong, is basically left undoing the mess that Chayka left in his wake, punting draft picks for Taylor Hall, getting draft picks taken away because he was cheating with his illegal scouting combine... The current GM has done a teardown and rebuild and acquired a gazillion draft picks in the process, giving them the best chance to build up a stacked prospect pool and eventually young NHL roster. If he was in a big market, he'd be hailed for rebuilding the right way, but since it's Arizona, just jokes about LTIR and trading away anyone decent.

 

[TopG]

Was supposed to be Dubas before Dubas was

 

[biturbo19]

The guy is likely not going to get a job again because of the stuff at the end, and was a really wierd hiring and probably shouldn't have had a GM job in the first place, but I think he gets way too much of a bad rap. Rather than "proceed to lay a turd" it's more like he wasn't able to polish a turd into gold. Again not a guy that should have gotten hired to GM right off the bat but when he did he kind of became the target for all the anti-analytical sentiment in the NHL community getting way more attention than he deserved generating a lot of indeterminable screeching noises. Like right in this threat there's a lot of hostile 'thought he was the smartest guy in the room' comments, how is that something quantifiable?

Perhaps the best case in point, it's now 3 seasons since he was fired and the coyotes are still just as shitty. How often do you hear about them now that Chayka isn't the GM? Do people even know how the Coyotes GM is now? I sure as hell don't.

From what I recall, he got a lot of flak for the Strome & Perlini for Schmaltz trade, but in the long run that's actually turned out well for them. His drafting was ragged on but Keller has brought it to another level this season and Hayton is looking like much less of a bust. On the positive side he did a good job revamping the Coyotes blueline and goaltending, but on the negative the Hall and Kessel acquisitions were busts. Overall, sounds like a pretty average GM resume that wouldn't get much distinction if he was a 60 year old from the old boys club rather than a 25 year old analyitics wiz kid.

I don't know...i think his approach inherently carried a bigger risk of criticism than doing it "the usual way". He did make it clear that he thought there was a "better way" to do things, unconventionally. He wasn't shy about that belief. And it really didn't work out. He also broke a bunch of rules and got the franchise hammered in a way they set them back extra years in their rebuild in the process. Because he didn't seem to believe that the rules applied to him the same way they did to everyone else in charge of an NHL franchise.


There are some things he did that actually did turn out in the end. But i think if you come in with that sort of braggadocious attitude, you're going to get held to that higher standard. Part of it is just an underlying "anti-analytics" bent, but part of it is that he made it pretty clear that he believed he could build a team better and faster than others using a "conventional" approach. Yet when he actually tried to build that team in his vision...he fell way short of the goal. While making those basic mistakes that set the franchise back even further.

 

[12ozPapa]

She looks great in Jets gear!
View attachment 686840

About as much plastic as the Pacific Garbage Patch.

 

[abo9]

The guy is likely not going to get a job again because of the stuff at the end, and was a really wierd hiring and probably shouldn't have had a GM job in the first place, but I think he gets way too much of a bad rap. Rather than "proceed to lay a turd" it's more like he wasn't able to polish a turd into gold. Again not a guy that should have gotten hired to GM right off the bat but when he did he kind of became the target for all the anti-analytical sentiment in the NHL community getting way more attention than he deserved generating a lot of indeterminable screeching noises. Like right in this threat there's a lot of hostile 'thought he was the smartest guy in the room' comments, how is that something quantifiable?

Perhaps the best case in point, it's now 3 seasons since he was fired and the coyotes are still just as shitty. How often do you hear about them now that Chayka isn't the GM? Do people even know how the Coyotes GM is now? I sure as hell don't.

From what I recall, he got a lot of flak for the Strome & Perlini for Schmaltz trade, but in the long run that's actually turned out well for them. His drafting was ragged on but Keller has brought it to another level this season and Hayton is looking like much less of a bust. On the positive side he did a good job revamping the Coyotes blueline and goaltending, but on the negative the Hall and Kessel acquisitions were busts. Overall, sounds like a pretty average GM resume that wouldn't get much distinction if he was a 60 year old from the old boys club rather than a 25 year old analyitics wiz kid.

I got curious so I looked at his body of work.... drafts, trades, signings.

Where were the Coyotes before he arrived in May 5th 2016?

24th in 2015-16, 29th in 2014-15, 18th in 2013-14, 19th in 2012-13

So, they were going into a wall. Their roster standouts? 24 years old OEL was their leading scorer. Domi was a 52 pts scorer 20 years old (nice!), Doan on the verge of retiring, 20 years old Duclair had 44 pts... 33 years old Mike Smith in goals with Domingue, Lindback playing as backups.


What were some of Chayka's bigger acquisitions? I skipped "useless" ones, but kept significant contributors to big W's and big L's.

- Acquired Goligoski for a 5th: Goligoski put up 152 pts in 372 games for the Coyotes, and was within -10 to +10 every year except one horrid -31 year. I'd call that a win

- Acquired Datsyuk's contract to move up 4 positions and nabbed Jakob Chychrun. Besides Tage Thompson, nothing great came out of the rest of that 1st round. I'd call that a win.

- Acquired Deangelo for a 37th OA pick. He then Tony D and a 1st quickly after for Ranta and Stepan.

Debatable. Tony D for a 2nd is a steal, but idk why he got traded shortly after, being unable to reign Tony D in would be a L. Also trading him and a high 1st for Ranta and Stepan was a steep price - even though Ranta and Stepan gave good hockey to the Coyotes.

- Acquired Dave Bolland and Lawson Crouse for 2nd and 3rd round picks (conditional). That's a win, Crouse is still on the Coyotes and a solid NHLer.

- Acquired Minnesota's 1st, 2nd and 4th against Martin hanzal and Ryan White and a 4th. Well, Hanzal stopped playing hockey 3 years later (65 games over that span). White was a grinder/goon. Clear W.

- Traded Mike Smith away for essentially a 3rd rounder. I think that's a clear L. Especially since it was same day as the Stepan/Raanta acquisitions.

- Traded away Duclair for Panik and Dauphin. Clear L due to Duclair breaking out just a few years later. But like Tony D, were there rumours of character issues? Maybe Chayka was too green to handle more "difficult" prospects?

- Acquired Kuemper for Rieder and Wedgewood. Big W. He had solid, SOLID years in Arizona AND they were able to flip him for a solid package (Timmins, 1st rounder, 3rd)

- Acquired Alex Galchenyuk vs Max Domi. L there, Domi continues to be a solid NHL forward while Galchenyuk has been in and out of the league for years. Again though, Domi is a "strong" character... a trend seems to be forming in his L's.

- Acquired Nick Schmaltz for Perlini and D. Strome.: A tight? They both seem to have become solid players.

- Moved up in the draft by 3 spots to grab Victor Soderstrom. Flyers picked Cam York with the pick and Egor Afanasyev. Too early to tell, but seems like a L just because Sodestrom doesn't seem like he was worth moving up for... and Chayka missed Caufield/Boldy/Knight.

- Kessel for Galchenyuk and Joseph. Jury is out on Joseph... could be a bad one. But Kessel gave it 3 good years in Arizona.

- Hall vs N. Merkley, Shnarr, 1st rounder, 3rd rounder. Meh, it was a "going all in" year it seems for the Coyotes. They fell flat but good try, he didn't pay that much more than other usual rentals did he?

Overall, you can clearly see a pattern to his losing trades - talented young prospects with rumoured "character issues". Definitely, he wasn't able to recoup decent long term value for them, but perhaps it was a result of those rumours that made them not valuable.



Now, for draft picks, what did the Coyotes end up with, or drafted and traded, from his era?

- Clayton Keller (7th OA, 2016)
- Jakob Chychrun (16th OA, 2016)
- PO Joseph (23 OA, 2017)
- Barrett Hayton (5th OA, 2018)
- Jan Jenik (65th OA, 2018)
- Ivan Prosvetov (114th OA, 2018)
- Victor Soderstrom (11th Oa, 2019)
- Matias Maccelli (98th OA, 2019)
- Kevin Bahl (55th OA, 2018)

Granted, a lot of them are still very young, but that looks like the most promising (with 2020 the Coyotes didn't have a pick in the first 3 rounds).

Overall his first round seems like it hits, but besides Keller no game breaking talent. Seems like an average drafter.

Signatures?
He seemed pretty high on the futures. Signed OEL, Keller, Schmaltz, Chychrun to long-ish terms contracts. OEL stands out like a sore thumb, but Keller and Schmaltz could end up solid value for the Coyotes.


For what it's worth, I think he left the Coyotes in a better spot than when he took over, with solid foundations to build on. Their core pieces of Keller, Schmaltz, Maccelli, Crouse, Hayton, perhaps future goalie Prosvetov and Soderstrom are all from his acquisitions/drafting. Current management also uses a lot of his acquired/drafted/developed assets to fasten the rebuild.

But, Current management also seems a bit more savy in navigating the cap and getting value for it as an asset - perhaps better in GM to GM relationships.

Still, Stepan returned a 2nd, Garland and OEL (+ cap space ), returned a 9th OA and 47 OA picks, Kuemper go them Timmins, 32nd OA and a 3rd, a 1st 2nd and 2nd for Chychrun.

Overall, he wasn't the worst GM in the world, nor was he especially good. It's a shame that he did some unethical stuff, because at his age, he could have learned a lot from his mistakes and had a lot more time to grow than most GMs

 

[PanniniClaus]

If you come in as an "outsider" that is already looked at that way, then proceed to lay a turd directly in the middle of everyone's collective vision and get yourself blacklisted for doing all kinds of illegal and scuzzy stuff...you're not going to get another chance at it.


Mike Gillis came in as an "outsider" and struggled at times with the angst a lot of other GMs had toward him. But he put together a darn good team that won a ton of games, to the point that if he wanted to...i think someone else would give him another chance.

Chayka came in, acted like he was better than everyone else because nerd stuff...and proceeded to put together a historically bad team for a bunch of years, and somehow break a bunch of long-standing NHL rules that cost his team in sanctions on top of it all. He basically flamed out as spectacularly as a GM possibly can. Nobody is going to want to associate with him or have his name associated with their program.



I'd wager his sister is a lot more likely to get some sort of shot with an NHL role than he is at this point. But they're both clearly complete grifters, more concerned with their image management than actually caring about hockey.

This is beautiful.. Never, ever... he never works in hockey again..Can't even see a minor hockey association wanting his name associated with their program.

 

[PizzaAndPucks]

Word was that the Devils were looming to bring him in a few years ago and give him some role of overseeing the Devils and the 76ers (our ownership owns them too). I'm glad that never actually happened.

 

[GeeoffBrown]

This guy will go down as one of the worst GMs of all time. A team would have to be daft to give him a shot