With major changes looming this offseason in Toronto, the Toronto Maple Leafs have hired former Arizona Coyotes GM John Chayka as General Manager. Leafs legend Mats Sundin has also been named Senior Executive Advisor, Hockey Operations.
The vibe around the team right now isn’t great, as Chayka doesn’t have a very good track record from his time in Arizona, and Sundin is a huge wild card. While the Toronto Maple Leafs deserve some credit for taking a risk, there are still many red flags with these hirings.
Despite his costly mistakes down in Arizona, Chayka still made some solid trades that have aged quite well. The hope is that Chayka has learned from his mistakes and will make the right moves to bring this team back into contention as soon as possible. To understand what John Chayka could bring to the Toronto Maple Leafs, it’s worth taking a closer look at some of his most successful trades with the Arizona Coyotes.
Nick Schmaltz for Dylan Strome
On Nov. 18, 2018, John Chayka traded Dylan Strome and Brendan Perlini to the Chicago Blackhawks for Nick Schmaltz. At the time, this deal didn’t look great, as Strome was a former third overall pick whose value had never been lower.
Perlini didn’t end up turning into anything, so the deal was essentially Strome for Schmaltz, one for one. Strome never found his footing in Chicago and wasn’t offered a qualifying offer, but he fit in very well with Washington, where he posted an 82-point season last year.
Schmaltz has been a great player for the Mammoth and has scored at a 70+ point pace in three separate seasons (including 74 points this year). Waiting to trade Strome in hopes that his value would increase likely would have backfired, as he never truly fit in Arizona. Both Strome and Nick Schmaltz broke out after the trade, and Chayka’s willingness to move a former third-overall pick ultimately paid off in the long run.
Darcy Kuemper for Rieder and Wedgewood
On Feb. 21, 2018, John Chayka acquired goaltender Darcy Kuemper from the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for Scott Wedgewood and Tobias Rieder. This trade was a slam dunk for Chayka, as Wedgewood was an AHL goalie for multiple seasons after the trade and had never played more than 32 games in a season until this year with the powerhouse Avalanche.
Rieder was no more than a fourth-liner for the rest of his NHL career, never putting up more than 11 points in a season.
On the other hand, Kuemper was a fantastic starting goaltender for the Coyotes, putting up a .925 save percentage in 55 games in his first season in Arizona. Kuemper put up a .925 save percentage the following year and was flipped for a first- and third-round draft pick to the Colorado Avalanche in the 2021–22 season. Chayka turned a couple of scraps into an elite starting goaltender who was eventually traded for first- and third-round draft picks.
Martin Hanzal for a first and second
On Feb. 26, 2017, Chayka traded Martin Hanzal, Ryan White, and a fourth-round pick to the Minnesota Wild for AHLer Grayson Downing and first-, second-, and fourth-round draft picks. Hanzal was a 6’6” middle-six centre who was capable of putting up 40 points a season while playing sound defence. At the time of the trade, Hanzal was on pace for only 42 points, which makes the return seem a bit puzzling at first glance.
Chayka was able to successfully convince rival GMs that Hanzal’s combination of size and two-way play was worth the hefty price. Hanzal would go on to play 20 games with the Wild, putting up a respectable 13 points before signing with the Dallas Stars. Unfortunately, his career came to an abrupt end after playing only 45 games with the Stars over two seasons due to chronic back issues.
All of the signs showed that Hanzal was extremely injury-prone (he never played a full 82-game season over his 12-year career), but Chayka was still able to get a haul for him. This is extremely encouraging to me, as for the past three years, the Leafs seemed to be on the opposite side of this kind of deal (Treliving eating up the clichés about Scott Laughton and trading a first and Grebenkin for him).
A few bad moves
We can’t fully analyze Chayka as a GM without going over his losses in Arizona. Chayka traded for an injury-prone Taylor Hall on December 16, 2019, in an attempt to make a deep playoff run. The team wasn’t considered a real contender at the time, and Chayka gave up a first-round pick and three solid prospects, so the timeline really didn’t align well. I can applaud his willingness to take a risk in this situation, though, as Hall put up 27 points in 35 games as a Coyote, and they did make the playoffs for the first time in eight years.
Another glaringly bad move by Chayka was the signing of Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Chayka signed OEL to a monster 8 × $8.25M deal on July 1, 2018. Similar to the Rielly extension in Toronto, the deal didn’t make any sense at the time and is even more confusing now, as OEL was never more than a high-end #2 defenceman throughout his career, and he got paid #1 defenceman money.
Finally, we can’t forget the infamous draft combine scandal, in which Chayka was caught illegally testing prospects ahead of the 2020 draft. The Coyotes had to give up a 2020 second-round pick and a 2021 first-round pick (which would’ve been 11th overall), even further damaging their already fragile long-term outlook.
Will Chayka help the Leafs?
John Chayka certainly had some great moves in Arizona, but he made numerous costly mistakes that left the franchise in disarray as he jumped ship on the eve of the 2019–20 playoffs. Despite this, there are some positives in the hire, as he is clearly willing to take risks, which we haven’t been used to over the last three years with Treliving as GM.
There’s reason to believe Chayka has grown from his past mistakes and can use his forward-thinking mindset to bring the Leafs back to contention. The more I think about it, the Sundin hire bothers me more than the Chayka one. Chayka has a serious upside and is different from what we, as fans, are used to. The Sundin hire feels more like a PR move to win back the fans than a hockey decision. Only time will tell if this new front office will bring the Leafs to the promised land, and all we can do as fans is hope.
