Chayka: Coyotes’ Hjalmarsson, Chychrun highlight GM’s tenure

John Chayka is currently in his third season as the general manager of the Arizona Coyotes.

In his time in that position, Chayka has made more than his fair share of trades, signings, draft picks and more.

The University of Western Ontario native was back at his alma mater recently where the Ivey Sports Management Conference was taking place. While there, Chayka joined Sportsnet’s 31 Thoughts: The Podcast hosted by Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek. The hosts discussed a variety of topics with Chayka, including his moves as the manager of Arizona.

Marek asked the young Coyotes GM about what move he was most proud of making since he took over.

Chayka gave a couple of answers.

“Most creative? Some of those cap deals,” he said, referring to instances where the Coyotes acquired contracts of retired players, using their own cap space to get assets from other teams. “Like, to get Jakob Chychrun for us was a big piece. He’s a talented young person and just his mindset, his attitude, who he is. As we were going through building out an organization, we felt we needed to pursue players and people like him.”

At the 2016 draft, the Coyotes traded forward Joe Vitale, the New York Rangers’ first-round pick and their own second-round pick for Pavel Datsyuk’s contract and Detroit’s first-round pick. That Detroit pick turned out to be Chychrun, while the two picks the Coyotes sent to the Red Wings wound up being Filip Hronek and Dennis Cholowski, two defensemen who have combined for 69 games, 10 goals and 15 assists.

Chychrun, whom Arizona selected 16th overall, was one of two players the Coyotes took in that first round. They also selected Clayton Keller seventh overall.

“For me, that was a big opportunity for us to get what we believe was a top-5 talent in the draft and walk away with what we thought were two of the top five players in that draft,” Chayka said. “Yeah, had to get a little creative to get there and ultimately you have to give to get, and it was a good deal for Detroit as well and it’s proven out to be so.”

But while Chychrun is still in the early stages of his NHL career, Chayka reflects positively on the move to acquire a veteran, perhaps one of the most underrated players on the Coyotes today: Niklas Hjalmarsson.

“I would say the one I enjoy the most seeing day-in, day-out is a guy like Nik Hjalmarsson,” Chayka said. “He’s a total pro, tremendous person. Our young guys learn so much from him every single day.”

The Coyotes traded defenseman Connor Murphy and forward Laurent Dauphin (Arizona would later re-acquire Dauphin) to get Hjalmarsson, a three-time Stanley Cup-winning left-handed defenseman. This year is Hjalmarsson’s 12th season in the league and second with Arizona.

“To get the opportunity to acquire a player like that, and then just what I see of him bringing out the best in [Oliver] Ekman-Larsson. When I took over, Oliver was in a tough spot,” Chayka said. “The team hadn’t won a lot, we were an old team, we didn’t have a lot of talent and Oliver was looking for something to believe in. I think acquiring Nik gave him that hope and allowed us to extend him and get him on board, which was huge for our franchise.”

COACH STEPAN

When Friedman asked Chayka if he’s ever brought in an individual to the organization who surprised him — positively or negatively — he eventually landed on an answer of forward Derek Stepan.

“Derek Stepan’s a guy who’s a veteran player, smart guy — you knew that — but all of a sudden he gets in your room and he’s like an extension of the coaching staff. He was voted, I think by the players association, the No. 2 guy that they expect to be a head coach in the future. You see that right away. He’s a guy that can bring out a board and talk to players. I don’t have much experience with seeing that in my years.”

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