Toronto Maple Leafs: Is Jakob Chychrun Even Worth Trading For?

The Toronto Maple Leafs are highly unlikely to have a  trade broken by people reading too much into someone’s Instagram account, in this case, the account of Jakob Chychrun.

However, on the off chance that this is true, and the Toronto Maple Leafs really have acquired Jakob Chychrun, I figured it would be a pretty good thing to break down the possibility.

Widely believed to be the best defenseman available in the NHL right now, Chychrun doesn’t seem to fit with the Leafs current makeup. 

But also, the Leafs most likely believe that nothing else matters if you’re adding star power to the roster.

The question is – how good is Jakob Chychrun?  It’s really hard to rate good players on bad teams.  Especially their best and most used player.

Everyone knows he is good, but is he “Trade Rasmus Sandin Good”?  Most people would say yes without being aware of how good Sandin actually is.  But it’s also entirely possible that I overrate players on the Leafs while only seeing the flaws of other players.

Chychrun is a lefty (the Leafs have 3 star(ish) lefties on the team.  He has also been injury prone in his career.

On the other hand, everyone who plays hockey is injury prone, and talent trumps everything.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Jakob Chychrun

If you look at Chychrun’s player card for the last three years, he’s pretty average.  A good defender who is below average at creating 5v5 offense.

These things get skewed by the horrible team he’s on, it seems.  Just for instance, his 5v5 points per 60 is 1.44 this year, and two years ago was 1.52 – those are higher than all but Morgan Rielly’s best season (1.70) and he is universally acknowledged as an elite scorer for a defenseman.

On the Toronto Maple Leafs those numbers would be fantastic, so offense isn’t a problem, no matter what the Player Cards say.

A bright spot right now is that Chychrun is winning his minutes 31-23 on the Coyotes this year.  That’s 57% of the goals.  Very good, but lucky. (Naturalstattrick.com).

As we should all be aware, Goals are the final result, and it takes a long time to get a useful sample size of just goals.  That is why things like scoring chances, and shot attempts are more predictive of the future than actual scoring.

Chychrun is getting sweet results, but his expected goals are 48%.  This is still relatively fantastic compared to his Coyotes teammates, but the difference between 48% expected goals and 57% actual goals needs to be recognized as the player getting somewhat (at the very least) lucky results.

I mean, last year, same player, same team, he had 37% Real Goals, while posting a 45% expected goals rating.  This would indicate he was unlucky.  You can see the Real Goals percentage fluctuates wildly, but the xgoals only 3%.

Final Analysis: Anyone who can get 48% xGoals on this year’s Coyotes is probably really good.  And,  studies have shown that a player’s teammates have 5 x more impact on their play than their opponents, which is nuts if you’re going from Arizona to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Also, while it’s not widely known because he’s an offensive puck-mover and doesn’t have the rep as a huge hitter, Chychrun is 6-2 220 which makes him the biggest player on the Leafs defense, should he actually be acquired.

Holl is taller, but 20 lbs lighter.  Brodie is the same height, but 30 lbs lighter.

Chychrun/Liljegren would likely be among the best pairings in the NHL, but it would be my sincere hope that a move like this sends Giorano to the right side, and either Brodie or Holl off the team, because I think trading Sandin will just end up haunting this team for years.

Ideally, you’d have Chychrun, Sandin and Liljegren making up the core of the best blue-line in the NHL. Unfortunately, I don’t see a scenario where the Leafs trade their only physical defender, nor someone as reliable as Brodie.

And that is where I ultimately end up doubting this will actually happen, because the assets you’re going to use to make only a slight upgrade – if it is even an upgrade – over Rasmus Sandin probably don’t make sense.

If you were going to pay the price for Chychrun, you could probably just have gotten Timo Meier instead, which I think helps this team more.  It will be interesting to see what happens.

My take is this: I would be excited to add Chychrun, but skeptical this is the best move the Leafs can make.  It is possible – probable even – that he is much better than I think, but It’s hard to know for sure.  If they make this move and also keep Sandin, I’d like it a lot more.