Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek had an intriguing Sabre-centric tidbit on air last night as he suggested that the Sabres could be interested in trading for Arizona Coyotes defenseman Jakob Chychrun. Marek posited that acquiring the hulking left-shot defenseman would alleviate some pressure from Buffalo’s young defense group.
“We’re starting to wonder as well about a dark horse (trade) candidate in the Buffalo Sabres,” Marek told host Ron MacLean. “Now, General Manager Kevyn Adams has always maintained ‘we’re sticking with youth, and that’s the way we’re going.’ But there is a feeling out there that they run those big three defenders out there really hard: Mattias Samuelsson, Owen Power and Rasmus Dahlin.”
Marek added that by acquiring Chychrun, the Sabres would add an established veteran presence to finish off the team’s top-4 defense structure.
“This is a team that doesn’t need any more prospects. They’ve identified their core; they’ve locked them up long term. They need to put together their team.”
Interesting, to be sure. Before delving into whether the Sabres could, would or should acquire Jakob Chychrun, let’s take a look at what the player brings to the ice. Selected in the 2016 NHL draft at 16 overall – and eight picks after the Sabres selected forward Alex Nylander – Chychrun was seen by many as a can’t-miss prospect ahead of that year’s draft.
Steve Kournianos of thedraftanalyst.com was especially keen on the young American:
Jakob Chychrun, Sarnia’s towering blueliner who last season quickly established himself as one of the OHL’s most complete players, is in our view a cornerstone defender with star potential, and the best blueliner for the 2016 draft. He can beat you inside and out, skate through you or around, and either nail you to the boards or laughingly absorb a hit at full speed. He can easily be classified as a two-way defender, but what makes him unique among his peers is the way he equally divides his elite play in accordance with the game situation.
The 6'2" 220 lb defenseman would immediately make a mark in the NHL during his 2016-17 rookie campaign as he posted 7 goals and 13 assists in 68 games. Incredibly, that mark of 68 games played still registers as the most games he’s played in any season since, although, admittedly, that stat has been affected by two Covid-shortened NHL campaigns during his 7-year career. Still, injuries have been a major issue for him to this point, and at only 24 years old, he’s already had ankle surgery, two wrist surgeries, two knee surgeries (one on each knee) and shoulder surgery.
That’s an awful lot of wear and tear for such a young man.
When he’s on the ice, Chyrchrun has been a solid and sometimes spectacular player who can score goals at high clip; he potted 18 goals in 56 games during the 2020-2021 season. Defensively, the underlying metrics look good too.
The last factor to consider when pondering a Chychrun trade is his contract situation. Here too, things look pretty rosy as he has this year and then two more seasons left on a contract with an average annual value of $4.6m counted against the cap. Critically, he doesn’t have any trade clause protection until the start of the new league year in 2023, meaning he has no say over where he ends up, if the Coyotes do decide to trade him.
When considering all of these factors, the Sabres absolutely should be interested in the Florida native, but will they be? Marek was mostly right when he pointed out that the Sabres are beyond the stage of their rebuild where they need to hoard draft picks and prospects, with one notable exception: the Sabres are incredibly thin on defensive prospects. They really don’t have anyone who projects to be a top-4 defender to put with the aforementioned Samuelsson, Dahlin and Power. Trading for a player to take that role would make a lot of sense.
Marek was also right when he said that Adams wants to build this thing slowly and methodically, so there really isn’t any precedent which suggests that Adams would pull off a big trade. Since becoming General Manager of the Sabres, Adams hasn’t acquired any players of note via trade, other than Alex Tuch who was included in the return for departing star player Jack Eichel. Outside of Tuch, his trade acquisitions include Malcolm Subban, Johnny Boychuk, and Ben Bishop.
There’s not much that trade history which would lead one to believe that Adams is the kind of GM to swing for the fences. That said, we all know that a GM can’t operate like that forever, and if he wants to keep his job as general manager, the team has to start winning in the near future. Chychrun would certainly help in that regard. The question is whether Adams would want to part with the kind of key assets required to land Chychrun.
Trade talk out of the desert last year indicated that the ‘Yotes were looking for a similar trade package to the one the Sabres got from Vegas for Eichel, meaning they want three first-round value pieces and one second-round piece in exchange for one player and a mid-round pick. Extrapolating from that, and with Chychrun’s injury history factored in, we can assemble a Sabres trade package consisting of the Sabres 2023 first-round pick (top-5 protected), Casey Mittelstadt, Jacob Bryson and the Sabres’ 2024 3rd round pick.
That feels like a lot.
But is it really too much? Mittelstadt and Bryson have both been stuck in third gear for a couple of seasons now, even if Mittelstadt is flashing here-and-there. The 3rd round pick loses a lot of its luster when considering that the Sabres have three second-round picks in 2023. The key piece is that first rounder.
Adding Chychrun, though, could be the kind of move that vaults the Sabres into respectability by finishing off a defensive top-four that would be one of the league’s best over the next 2.5 seasons. And for that reason, this trade speculation is certainly worth monitoring.
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