Bill Armstrong Unloads On Jakob Chyrchun
Bill Armstrong did not hold back. The Arizona Coyotes general manager recently tore into former defenseman Jakob Chychrun following his trade to the Ottawa Senators. Despite being on the trade block for over the years, Arizona finally pulled the trigger ahead of this year’s trade deadline.
The 2019 Stanley Cup winner from the Blues front office sat down on the Cam and Strick Podcast yesterday. As mentioned earlier, Armstrong did not mince words when it came to the process behind the trade:
“It’s hard to trade a player when he’s coming off a season he was minus-20. He was terrible,” Armstrong said. “And then you throw his injury history from before, and then you throw his injury history now, and he’s out for eight months.”
– Bill Armstrong from Cam & Strick Podcast via theScore
Does Armstrong have a point? Yes and no. Obviously, when it comes to injuries, guys have to play in order for their value to go up. It’s pretty much that simple. Contenders add to their group with the playoffs in mind. It is clear that Chychrun wouldn’t add much to any team last season.
However, what’s the point in saying he’s minus-20? He’s a career minus-38 playing for one of the worst teams in hockey. In fact, the Coyotes sit with the 27th best record in the league and have the sixth-worst record of any team over the last five years.
Quite The High Horse
He is by no means perfect, but Chychrun was easily the best defenseman to come out of the desert since probably Keith Yandle. Look at this Coyotes team on Daily Faceoff right now. Is there a single defenseman who’s name you recognize? Maybe Patrick Nemeth? That team is nothing short of an unmitigated disaster.
There’s teams like Anaheim and Chicago who will bottom out and rebuild the right way. However, there’s also teams like the Coyotes. Not truly bad enough to be in the Connor Bedard sweepstakes. Also can’t draft to save their lives. However, we already know that the league will rig the draft lottery so Gary Bettman’s precious expansion team won’t completely collapse.
Bill Armstrong aired his grievances on Jakob Chychrun after a long and complicated trade saga. While he’s perfectly entitled to do so, it doesn’t really mean much since the Coyotes are going nowhere fast. He acted like Chyrchrun was a Norris winner when the return they got wasn’t anything special. Because of that, he decided to go public with his side of the story.
