That’s the thing with Bear. He was excellent in Carolina when he was playing those big minutes with Slavin. He also has a heavy slapper, and can get his shots through screens, but not always past the goalie. Then injuries, Covid, and DeAngelo’s break out with the Canes happened and he dropped down the depth charts. The main reason why he was scratched in the playoffs were because of the uncertainty surrounding his health, but also that Smith was playing so well at the time. Trade is pretty good value wise.

That's a lot more than I'd want to trade for Chychrun.

Yeah it feels like quite a lot. But if we can keep Boqvist and our firsts and clear a bit of forward logjam we should certainly look for an angle to do so.

If it costs less we're thrilled, and it might considering he had a down season.

Losing Peeke AND Bean in an effort to get Chychrun is like robbing Peter to pay Paul, as they say. He'd be nice to have, but paying that much is more than a little excessive.

And I suspect we could get Bear for less as well.

too much for Chychrun

I see what you mean but Chychrun is the same age and significantly more accomplished than both of them. I did a quick pull of WAR from Evolving Hockey and Chychrun's seasons in 19-20 (1.8 WAR) and 20-21(1.5 WAR) compared with Werenski's (1.7 in 19-20, 1.4 in 16-17 and 1.4 in 17-18) and Gavrikov's (1.5 in 19-20 and 0.8 in 21-22) best.

Bean and Peeke are the same age as Chychrun and haven't shown the flashes or sustained talent that he has. The way I see it, we're paying Bean+ for a straight upgrade on Peeke. This would give us a D corps in Werenski, Gavrikov, Boqvist and Chychrun that is close in talent to Hedman, McDonagh, Cernak and Sergachev (provided that Boqvist grows). This doesn't take into account Blankenburg and any progress he could make, it's too soon to tell what he is.

This gives Ceulemans and Svozil time to grow into NHL defenseman, with Carlsson or Christiansen holding down the 3rd pair, as well as any we take with our 22 picks (could be Jiricek, Mateychuk, Mintyukov or Bichsel).

I don't expect to win on pure value in all of these trades. We have an excess of wingers and young and unproven defenseman and if we can leverage the quantity for quality I think we should take the chance. If we don't, we risk losing players to development purgatory.

I don't really have an issue with trading Bean and Peeke for the upgrade, it's more Texier and Chinakhov being the add ons. I feel like out of those 4 they would be giving up at least one guy that reaches a level of play that would be comparable to Chychrun on their own if not 2 guys that get there.

I do not see Chychrun as a direct upgrade on Peeke largely because Peeke is a RHD and Chychrun is not. When you're building a team, position matters.

On Bean? Yes, absolutely; he's another LHD we've played at RD. But not Peeke.

Yeah it feels tough to move them, but we have so many players that need space. Chinakhov certainly isn't easy to give up but it's going to be the hardest to get him minutes while we're also breaking in Marchenko, Sillinger and Johnson this year and he's competing with our 22 1sts next year potentially. Texier feels really good but we have to give up something and I don't think Arizona takes Bean, Peeke, Foudy and Bemstrom. I still very much believe in Bemstrom and Foudy but they have little value outside of the org. It's going to come down to whether you prefer Texier or 12OA, I think, and I prioritized the pick given we have a current depth crunch.



Chychrun had some of his best producing seasons on the right side and he played some there in Junior as well. Worst case scenario we are running Werenski-Gavrikov-Chychrun on the left side and it looks a lot like Tampa.

...except that Tampa has actual NHL-quality defenders at RHD.