Coyotes GM Bill Armstrong slams Jakob Chychrun as he defends deadline trade

Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong is tired of hearing he messed up the trade that sent Jakob Chychrun to the Ottawa Senators in early March. The GM defended the trade despite heavy scrutiny over the return he ended up with as a guest on the Cam and Strick podcast.

“I was reading an article on how we buffooned it. The big saga, and how we blew this. But people skim that, they don’t really understand that Jakob was injured for eight months,” Armstrong explained.

Reports had emerged, and that since Chychrun had been on the trade block since January 2022, that Armstrong was after a hefty return, seeking at least two first round picks in the transaction. The Coyotes ultimately dealt Chychrun to the Senators for a top-five protected 2023 first-round pick, a 2024 conditional second-round pick (originally from the Washington Capitals) that becomes a top-10 protected first-round pick if Ottawa makes the 2023 Eastern Conference Final, and a 2026 second-rounder.

Armstrong especially did not hold back on his former player, putting the blame on Chychrun’s subpar performance in 2021-22 and health issues for the outcome of the trade.

“It’s hard to trade a player when he’s coming off a season he was minus-20. He was terrible,” Armstrong added. “And then you throw his injury history from before, and then you throw his injury history now, and he’s out for eight months.”

It is true that Chychrun missed a lot of time as he was sidelined with a lower-body injury at the 2022 trade deadline and missed the final 24 games of the season. He then missed the opening 16 contests of 2022-23 with a wrist issue. However, the Coyotes are the ones that sat him out for trade-related reasons nearly a month before the deadline on March 3rd…

Armstrong and the Coyotes now have over $15 million in cap space - the second-most in the league, heading into free agency season this summer. The GM claims he wants to maintain flexibility to either sign free agents this offseason or take on more bad contracts in exchange for assets.

Since joining the Senators, Chychrun has put up two goals and two assists in seven contests with the Senators. And seems healthy.

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