(Listen: The Skate Podcast crew and guest Mark Divver discuss the possibility of the Bruins going after Jakob Chychrun at the 25:00 mark.)
As of right now, the Bruins remain in win-now mode. While there are some who believe their Stanley Cup window is already closed and they should be looking to blow things up and rebuild, the Bruins don’t think that.
If they did, they would’ve let young players battle for depth jobs going into the season instead of signing veteran free agents. If they did, they wouldn’t have any reason to bring Tuukka Rask back.
We can debate whether this is the right path or whether these have been wise moves, but even with all the hiccups so far this season, the Bruins are currently a playoff team. None of the teams below them in the Eastern Conference look like serious challengers. In the NHL, perhaps more than any other sport, teams that are in the playoffs are generally looking to add to their roster, not subtract from it. Lower seeds making deep runs is not unusual. The Islanders have done it each of the last two seasons. The Canadiens went to the Stanley Cup Final last year.
The Bruins and general manager Don Sweeney will almost certainly be looking to add, barring a catastrophic collapse over the next couple months. So, what will he be able to add? It’s still a little too early to get a great feel for what the market might look like, but there is one big name already taking over the conversation: Arizona Coyotes defenseman Jakob Chychrun.
And the Bruins have already been linked to him. Nick Kypreos said on the Real Kyper & Bourne show this week that he has heard Boston is one of the teams “in the mix.”
“There was some good speculation before Christmas, but I’ve heard recently that it’s gone to another level,” Kypreos said, as transcribed by NBC Sports Boston. “Some of the teams I’m hearing now in the mix include the Islanders, Bruins, Kings, Ducks, Oilers, Panthers and, yes, the Leafs are trying to figure out what the starter is for Jakob Chychrun.”
The Bruins being interested in Chychrun makes a lot of sense. It would be more surprising if they weren’t at least checking in.
Chychrun is a 6-foot-2, 23-year-old left-shot defenseman who can do it all. He scored 18 goals in 56 games last season and 12 in 63 the year before. He plays 23-25 minutes a night and his defensive metrics have always been good. He finished top-10 in Norris Trophy voting a year ago. And he is signed through 2025 at an affordable $4.6 million per year. He could be that top-pairing left-side D the Bruins have been looking for, both for the present and the future.
Chychrun has had a tougher go of it this season, though. He has just two goals and five assists in 26 games. He is a league-worst minus-29. He has been out since Dec. 10 with an upper-body injury. His analytics, especially his offensive numbers, are way down, as he’s last on his team in goals above replacement and second to last in expected goals above replacement, according to Evolving-Hockey. Of course, it needs to be noted that he is stuck on the worst team in the NHL, which is certainly a big factor in those numbers.
Don’t expect any of this season’s struggles to lower the cost to land Chychrun, though. TSN’s Darren Dreger said this week that the Coyotes are “looking for a Jack Eichel type of return.” Eichel fetched the Sabres a middle-six forward (Alex Tuch), a top prospect (Peyton Krebs), a first-round pick and a second-round pick.
A comparable package that we came up with for the Bruins at the time looks something like this: Brandon Carlo, 2021 first-round pick Fabian Lysell, a first-round pick and a second-round pick. That is obviously a lot. For an organization that already has a shallow prospect pool, trading their No. 1 prospect and two more early-round picks would be a tough pill to swallow. Trading Carlo would leave a hole on the right side of the Bruins' defense, but Chychrun would be a clear upgrade overall.
It’s entirely possible no one offers Arizona a package like that. That still doesn’t mean the price will come down. The Coyotes don’t need to trade Chychrun right now. They don’t need to trade him any time in the next couple years, really. He’s young enough that he can be part of their rebuild and not just a trade chip that gets them more picks and prospects. He is not demanding a trade like Eichel was. The only way that trading him makes sense is if they do get blown away with an Eichel-type offer.
As we wrote regarding the possibility of the Bruins getting Eichel, if a team really wants a player badly enough, they can always throw enough assets into a package to get something done. But the chances of the Bruins going all-in on Chychrun and hollowing out their farm system even further seem pretty slim as of now.