Jakob Chychrun

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

7 goals and 14 assists in 47 games — 21 points at 23:00 a night, minus-20, with 1 power-play goal on 141 shots and 47 penalty minutes.

Two consecutive seasons cut in half. He played 56 games in 2020-21 and 47 in this one, and the 18 goals and 41 points of that shortened 2020-21 season remain the argument for what he is.

45.2 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 876 minutes, the 13th percentile among defencemen. His ice went 29-48 against an expectation of 28.83-34.92 — the scoring landed exactly where the chances said, and thirteen more went in behind him than they predicted. On a club whose goaltending finished 31.9 goals below expectation, that gap is not his.

Beside Clayton Keller he took 51.2 per cent of the expected goals across 447 attempts; away from Keller, 42.4. The best forward on the club is the only thing that made his minutes look ordinary.

The Finesse Game

7.83 shots per 60 is the 99th percentile among the league’s defencemen. Nobody at the position shoots more often. 101.2 mph is the 95th percentile of velocity — the hardest shot on this roster.

Seven goals off 141 attempts is 4.96 per cent, which is what happens when a heavy shot is taken from a median of 50 feet with 7 per cent of the attempts from inside the slot. The shot is a weapon and the location is not, and on a power play with no net-front presence the rebounds went nowhere.

1.32 even-strength points per 60 is the 86th percentile among defencemen. The puck moves when he has it, and 2.05 giveaways per 60 is the ordinary price.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 215, and the physical half is the weakest part. 2.83 hits per 60 is the 32nd percentile and 3.66 blocks the 34th — for a man that size he neither finishes checks nor puts himself in front of pucks.

1.00 penalties taken per 60 is the 80th percentile and minus-0.56 on drawn against taken is the 14th. He fouls when he is beaten, and on 23 minutes a night that is a great many power plays.

The skating is real: 22.8 mph top speed, the 89th percentile, and 2.6 bursts above 20 mph per 60, the 78th. He covered 3.02 miles a game, which is a top-pair workload’s worth of ground.

The Intangibles

Sixteenth overall in 2016, 337 games before his twenty-fifth birthday, and 142 points of them.

He is 24, signed through 2025 at a number every contending club can afford, and he has been the most discussed trade asset in hockey for a year. A 6-2 left-shot defenceman who plays 23 minutes, shoots more than anybody at the position and turns 25 in March is exactly what a contender pays two first-round picks for — and the reason Arizona has not moved him yet is that it keeps having to explain 47 games and 21 points.