Why Jakob Chychrun would solve everything

The title isn’t exactly true, there’s little chance Chychrun would be able to pay my bills or provide me my father’s approval. But he sure as shit would fill a massive crevice in the Oilers roster, that being the blueline.

As it stands the Oilers blueline is scant. Ceci is not a first pairing defender & Kulak, who was exceptional in 3rd pairing minutes last year, is sputtering in the 2LD role. Nurse is being asked to play the minutes of a $9.25M defender, and while the TOI has been there, the results have not. Nurse didn’t give himself that price-tag though, these struggles are more a product of roster construction than the individuals themselves. They are who they are, but they need help.

That being said the team desperately needs a difference-maker on the backend. A two-way force that can take meaningful minutes on the chin. That difference-maker should be Jakub Chychrun. You may recognize the name from the smear campaign spearheaded by the likes of Spector & Stauffer. But his game is often mischaracterized amongst Oilers fans, he may be as close to a perfect fit for the Oilers as it gets. Let’s go through why.

• Age
• Contract
• Good at Hockey

Chychrun is 24 years old, he’s still growing as a player & only going to get better through the contention years for the Oilers. Speaking of contention years, let’s get into his contract. Chychrun has 2 years left after this year at a very very manageable 4.6M AAV, the perfect deal for a cap-crunched club who’s trying to win now.

Lastly, the kid can play. Chychrun is having an impressive impact on a pathetic Coyotes team. Not only is he scoring at a 60-point pace over 82 games, but he’s tilting the ice in the right direction & making the Yotes competitive when he’s out there.

ARI with Chychrun: 57 GF%, 48 xGF%
ARI w/o Chychrun: 39 GF%, 41 xGF%

Dom Luszczyszyn’s GSVA model has Chychrun providing $8.6M worth of value this year. For comparison, the same model has Darnell Nurse at $7.2M Market Value. Chychrun could be the difference between getting swept in the WCF & making the Stanley Cup Final.

Now not everyone’s as bullish on Chychrun as I am, some narratives you may have heard from the likes of Spector, Bob, or Jim, are that he:

• Is a One-Way Player
• Is Injury prone
• Will block/be traded for Broberg

Let’s break those down.

The idea that Chychrun is a one-way player is ridiculously over blown, especially by media close to the organization, while he does move the puck well & scores at an impressive clip, that’s not where his game ends. Evolving Hockey’s GAR model Chychrun’s defence ranked the in 64th percentile over the last 3 years, for reference Darnell Nurse is in just the 7th percentile (lower being worse) during that same span. Chychrun’s no slouch in his own zone.

Chychrun has a great defensive stick & is exceedingly efficient when it comes to puck retrievals & board battles, the former being a weak point for this current squad.

Injury problems are a fair concern to have with Chychrun, he’s played only a single full season (20-21 Bubble year) & has never eclipsed 68 games-played. He is a high-risk high-reward player. Should that stop the Oilers from acquiring him? No. It’s been extensively reported Jake McCabe was fancied by upper management, a player 5 years older than Chychrun with only 102 more games-played (371 – 473). McCabe was also the recipient of cervical spine surgery back in August. Now the fact that both players have an injury history doesn’t excuse the risk, but it does show that the organization is willing to take that risk for a player they like. So while health is a fair concern for Chychrun, it should in no way be a dealbreaker.

Now to my favourite narrative, blocking/moving Broberg. To the rational this may seem like a non-factor, to some inside the Oilers organization this is a terrifying thought. DNB infamously reported earlier this year that some within the Oilers brass feel that Broberg will be just as good as Chychrun by the end of the year. Whether any functioning human actually believes this is yet to be proven, but the thought itself is entirely hope-based.

That being said, you can’t argue Brobergs results these past couple months. He leads the team in 5v5 xGF%, with a beautiful 61.74 per NaturalStatTrick, steps up quicking in the neutral zone, and has made a steady pairing with Bouchard. The only problem is the competition their putting up these results against. Broberg has played some of the easiest competition in the league illustrated nicely by JFresh.

Broberg is the the 0th (doesn’t get worse than that) percentile in competition. The results are encouraging, but as stated before, we’ve seen guys like Kulak get elevated minutes & stumble. If Broberg hasn’t been trusted to play 20 minutes against some of the worst teams in the league how can anyone expect him to do it in the playoffs? It isn’t fair to him, & it isn’t fair to 97 & 29. He is still very young, but so is Chychrun. At the end of Chychrun’s age 21 season he had played 234 NHL games, Broberg currently sits at 47. I have no doubt, barring injury, that Broberg will go on to have a nice NHL career, Chychrun just fits the window too perfectly. You have to give to get in this league.

A prospect drafted 4 years ago shouldn’t stand in the way of going all-in. The team needs it and Connor & Leon deserve it.

Tell me how wrong I am on Twitter @StonyOil