The more I look into Chayka’s only run as GM, the worse it looks. If this guy is left unchecked, it could be a total disaster for the Leafs. Similar but worse than Dubas.

Chayka was hired in May of 2016 by the Coyotes at 26.

***2016 draft: Keller 7th overall and Chychrun 16th overall. Technically, he was the GM when they drafted in 2016 but who knows how much input he had on that draft.
2017 draft: Pierre-Olivier Joseph 23rd overall. 225 games, 46 points. He passed on Poehling, Oettinger, Frost, Jokiharju, Tolvanen, Hague and Boqvist. Not a huge bust but a bust.
2018 draft: Barett Hayton 5th overall. 358 games, 65 goals, 155 points. Also drafted Bahl in the 2nd round. He passed on Quinn Hughes, Bouchard, Dobson. Another bust draft.
2019 draft: Victor Soderstrom 11th overall. 61 games, 1 goal, 12 points. Passed on Boldy, Spencer Knight, Caufield, Newhook, Krebs, Harley and McMichael. Huge bust.
-He also drafted Maccelli in the 4th round. He has played 295 games with 51 goals and 169 points. A small victory figuratively and literally.
2020 draft: Did not have a 1st, 2nd or 3rd round pick. Combined games played of all the players drafted: 2.

Absolutely nothing about Chayka gives me any kind of confidence he is what the Leafs need from a drafting perspective. Worse than Dubas in drafting.

His list of trades are here: https://www.nhltradetracker.com/user/trade_list_by_GM/John_Chayka/291/1

Some notable trades he made:

Acquired Taylor Hall for a 1st round pick, Nick Merkley, Nate Schnarr and a 3rd round pick. Terrible trade. A 35 game rental. 1st round pick became Dawson Mercer. Merkley was a bust but at the time was a former 1st round pick with same value and he blew it on a rental. Typical Leafs behavior.

Acquired Kessel and Birks for Galchenyuk and P.O. Joseph. Not a great trade considering Joseph was their 1st round pick just 2 years prior and Kessel was finished.

Acquired Nick Schmaltz for Dylan Strome and Brendan Perlini. Not a terrible trade but Strome has outperformed Schmaltz overall despite taking a few years to reach that potential. Again, showing more and more examples of his willingness to trade his 1st round picks / top prospects.

Re-acquired Galchenyuk for Max Domi. Bust trade considering Domi scored 28 goals and 77 points immediately and is still in the NHL. Galchenyuk lasted 1 year in Arizona.

Acquired Kruger for Martinook. Not a good trade. Kruger never played a game in Arizona.

Acquired Kuemper for Wedgewood and Rieder. That’s probably a push.

Acquired Richard Panik and Laurent Dauphin for Anthony Duclair and Clendening. That’s a small loss.

Re-acquired Wedgewood for a 5th round pick.

Acquired Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta for DeAngelo and a 1st round pick (7th overall). Mittelstadt, Rasmussen, Tippett, Vilardi, Necas, Suzuki…very bad pick to trade away.

Re-acquired DeAngelo for a 2nd round pick. It’s pretty strange how many times he brings back a guy he traded not long before.

Again, I don’t mind the advanced stats stuff but it needs results and this guy has very, very bad results. Arizona was so bad, for so long, they had to relocate to Utah. And their current success seems to have almost nothing to do with most of what Chayka did as GM. In fact, he made so many bad picks and trades, one could argue the team would have already been where it is today many years ago if it wasn’t for his destructive run as GM.

Leafs are about to make a very big fuck up with this guy. Hopefully it falls apart and doesn’t happen. This is Stellick x JFJ to the exponent Dubas levels of stupidity.