Photo from TSN’s Claire Hanna’s Twitter feed (@clahanna).
This week’s end-of-the-year media availabilities fuelled some intriguing discussion on the state of the Ottawa Senators creating some fallout that is hard to ignore. And, given the success of Amazon Prime’s online series, if there’s any opportunity to work the word ‘fallout’ into the headline and body of an article for search engine optimization, I will shamelessly jump all over it. Fallout. Fallout. Vault. Fallout.
Jakob Chychrun’s availability drew most of the attention, not because of his Zack Morris’esque sweater. When asked about his willingness to sign an extension and be a part of the future, he shied away from making any promises about a return.
After a long pause, Chychrun responded with:
“It’s a tough question. I honestly have not thought about that. I have one more year left. There haven’t even been talks of an extension or anything. I haven’t really gotten my head wrapped around that idea.
“It’s tough for me to sit here and act like I have. I don’t know. I just take it day-by-day and see if and when we have those talks and go from there.”
As Claire Hanna noted on Twitter, this represented a significant departure from his media availability the previous season.
Chychrun arrived at last year’s trade deadline full of enthusiasm joining a new organization where he was expected to play a large role in stabilizing the Senators’ top four.
That never really materialized.
We can blame injuries on the blue line for helping disrupt the combinations used, it was clear early on that the organization was uncomfortable using Chychrun on his off-side for extended periods.
Chychrun was one of the few blueliners who could stay healthy. He was one of only three players who played in each of the team’s 82 games, but his defensive partners varied widely throughout the season.
Chychrun is no fool, he recognizes the fact that he’s not playing often enough with the team’s best defencemen — who just happen to play the left side like Chychrun.
When everyone is healthy, the Senators rely heavily on the Jake Sanderson-Artem Zub pairing, so Chychrun rarely logged minutes with the team’s best right defenceman.
Instead, he received a heavy dose of Jacob-Bernard Docker and Travis Hamonic. His most common partner at five-on-five was Bernard-Docker at 433.4 minutes and he played 274.4 minutes with Hamonic.
Of Chychrun’s 1523.1 minutes on the ice, 47.6 percent was spent playing alongside one of those two players. The on-ice results were predictably horrendous.
When playing with JBD, the Senators generated 37.01 percent of the total goals (GF%), 44.43 percent of the total shots on goal (SF%), 45.26 percent of the total shots (CF%) and 41.3 percent of the expected goals (xGF%).
With Hamonic, the results were not much better. The Senators generated 47.25 percent of the total goals (GF%), 44.95 percent of the total shots on goal (SF%), 45.75 percent of the total shots (CF%) and 44.59 percent of the expected goals (xGF%).
Chychrun’s second most frequent partner was Thomas Chabot at 344.1, but when they did play together, the Senators allowed 4.38 goals per 60 minutes of five-on-five ice time — the highest rate of any defensive partner Chychrun played with.
With one year left on his six-year, $27.6 million contract, I have a hard time believing that Chychrun has not put any thought into his future or one that involves the Senators.
When you are that close to unrestricted free agency and have an opportunity to cash in and sign an extension that should dwarf his $4.6 million average annual value figure, it just does not seem genuine.
Of course, Chychrun will never come out publicly and announce he is looking for a change, but he indirectly intimated as much through his lack of enthusiasm.
Like everyone else, Chychrun realizes that Sanderson and Chabot are locked in on the left side and that the team can only invest so much money into its left side. Putting another six to eight million and bringing that team’s investment close to $24 million does not make much sense.
There are too many holes on the roster where that money could be reallocated more efficiently.
Chychrun was a good offensive piece for the Senators. He led their defencemen in scoring with 14 goals and 41 points, but most of his value was tied to the Senators gaining the zone offensively where his ability to find soft coverage and space to get his booming shot off paid dividends.
Chychrun was a relatively underwhelming player for the team defensively, unfortunately. Granted, when you play for a poor defensive team and spend the majority of your ice time playing with JBD and Hamonic, the on-ice results will be terrible. That is a given.
Chychrun just struggled to impact the game defensively and his penchant for turnovers in the defensive end often led to more sustained pressure and offence by the opposition.
The question of fit was always a risk when the organization made the trade last year and when the team dealt another second-round pick to get Nikita Zaitsev’s cap hit off the books to accommodate Chychrun’s salary, it was another microcosm of the Pierre Dorion era — moving valuable draft capital in deals that just did not work out.
The risks were always real.
Both players offered the Senators two years of team control. DeBrincat had one year remaining on his contract before his lone remaining year of restricted free-agent status kicked in.
There was always an issue of fit and usage with Chychrun, but his six-year contract had two seasons remaining taking him to unrestricted free agency in 2025. In each instance, the Senators faced a precarious position. Once that first season elapsed, the organization could not take (and cannot in Chychrun’s case) enter a season with a valuable asset on an expiring deal without any guarantee of a contract extension.
Chychrun’s lack of enthusiasm is understandable. The team fell short of expectations, he spent the year playing predominantly with ineffective depth guys and in his contract year, that situation does not look like it will change. If next summer represents his lone opportunity to sign a massive contract, there are more favourable destinations where Chychrun may prefer to be.
When the Senators dealt for Alex DeBrincat and Chychrun the rationale was understandable. There was no mistaking the individual talent. These players were expected to improve the quality and performance of a roster featuring impressive young pieces in its core and not much else.
I have seen people write that criticizing the outcome is revisionist history. It is not. The upside AND the risks were well-documented and always very real when those deals were made. If and when these moves don’t work out, no one is to blame but the guy who pulled the trigger on the deals. Dorion strategically made decisions that had the potential ramifications of being short-term moves that short-changed the rebuild. He was willing to live with the consequences and now the Senators are facing a reality in which they dealt two picks inside the top 12 for players who gave them one full season each of hockey.
DeBrincat’s willingness to only sign an extension limited the Senators’ trade partners to Detroit which hamstrung the return. Chychrun has one year left on his deal at a relatively inexpensive cap hit, so theoretically, he should have less control over his next prospective destination. In a perfect world, his low cap hit is intriguing enough that a larger pool of teams may roll the dice on him as a rental while teams interested in working out an extension can engage the Senators in a sign-and-trade scenario.
More Fallout…
Maybe it is coincidental, but it is hard to ignore a recurring pattern in the aftermath of the Senators’ season.
Frank Seravalli was the first to openly hint at it in his column on the Daily Faceoff.
The highlighted portion seems like an odd throwaway comment at the end of his blurb. Of course, Seravalli could simply be spitballing and assuming that losing will foster a desire for change, it is not uncommon for the league’s talking heads to throw out hypotheticals. On the other hand, it seems weird to just put that out there without hearing something.
The inferred implication Seravalli is hinting at is if things don’t improve quickly, Brady Tkachuk ask out.
It is early to be concerned about that possibility, but his frustrations from his end-of-the-year media availability are obvious. As an American-born player on the verge of welcoming his first child, it would be easy to understand if his personal and professional situations left him wondering whether the grass was greener elsewhere.
Tkachuk has been with the Senators for six seasons middling seasons which were spent under the previous regime pervaded by incompetency and embarrassments. New management and ownership have arrived and through their formative first few months on the job, they have represented a departure from the past but have not done much on the personnel front to improve the talent on the roster.
They should most certainly be afforded the benefit of the doubt and be allowed to put their stamp on the team before judgment, but how long will it take to resolve the complicated mess that Pierre Dorion left for them? And, will the captain have the patience to ride out that storm if it may take longer than he would prefer?
At a time when fans are trying to maintain their optimism, thinking about core players like Tkachuk potentially asking for a change is not something this city needs.
With the greatest respect , I think this narrative continues with what I believe is the false notion that it is Chychrun who is driving this bus. It seems obvious to me Staios doesn’t see a fit and has made it clear the player has been on the trading block as far back as I think December. And wisely so. When you’re on a contract like that, and the GM hasnt approach you to see about an extension, what are you supposed to say? It doesn’t really indicate he can think on his feet to say he hasn’t thought about his future in Ottawa. That’s silly. But he sees the writing on the wall. Dorion was his sponsor and Dorion’s gone. The media question and subsequent buzz implied he doesn’t want to stay. Doesn’t seem it’s his call ATM.
You nailed it Graham. Chykrun never had a fair shot. But he did beat predictions of being injury prone. Personally I am intrigued by the possibility of trading both Chykrun and Chabot. In return I'd look for left and right stay at home d-men. Big physcial dudes. It would also free a lot of cap space for free agency or trades. They'd probably have to retain 2 mill of Chabot's salary though. But the double move would really shake up the d mix, and open it up so two of JBD, Guenette and Kleven can step up to fill the third pairing.