From Beauvillier to Wilson, we’re taking a look at and grading the 2024-25 season for every player who laced ‘em up for the Washington Capitals for a significant number of games during the campaign, with an eye towards 2025-24. Next up, Jakob Chychrun.
The Bio:
#6 | Defense | Shoots: Left
Height: 6’2” | Weight: 216 | Born: March 31, 1998
Birthplace: Boca Raton, FL | Acquired: Via trade on July 1 from OTT for Nick Jensen and a 3rd-round pick
Cap Hit: $4,600,000 this season; $9M starting 2025-26 | Signed Through: 2032-33 | Expiry Status: Unrestricted Free Agent
The Scouting Report (via Sports Forecaster)
The son of former NHL defenseman Jeff Chychrun has the kind of offensive skills his dad lacked. His biggest asset is a bomb of a shot that is a weapon on the power play. He is also an excellent skater with top-notch mobility who can be used in any situation (he can easily average 20-plus minutes per game). Still has to iron out some glitches in his defensive-zone play.
Long Range Potential: Excellent all-around defenseman and minute muncher.
The Stats:
The Charts:
The Key Stat: Chychrun scored a career-high 20 goals, which ranked third in the league among defensemen this season…and was one more goal than the entire Caps’ defense scored in the 2023-24 season.
The Good: With John Carlson starting to slow down, it was important the Caps tried to find a way to replace Carlson’s offense and Chychrun has done a stellar job at that, putting up a career-high 47 points in 74 games. And while Carlson has put up more points overall, it’s worth noting that Carlson only broke the 40-point mark once prior to 2017-18 – aka his 27/28-year-old season. Chychrun just turned 27. From their 21-26 year old seasons, Carlson averaged 42.1 points per 82 games, Chyrchun has averaged 46.3, so Jakob is on a better offensive projection.
Chychrun is an excellent skater, has a ripper of a shot, and always remains in great shape (granted with some questionable diet choices). Having a player like Chychrun to step in and support offensively just as Carlson is slowing down is perfect timing.
And while his underlying numbers over the course of the season weren’t the prettiest, he did improve after the Four Nations break. In the 50 games before the Four Nations Break, Chychrun had a 46.61 xGF%, -6.88 xGF%Rel, both worst among defensemen on the team; after the break, he posted a 53.96 xGF%, +3.86 xGF%Rel, both defensive best on the team. He’s actually following a similar path as Rasmus Sandin, who struggled his first season with the Caps but got better and better. Caps will need Chychrun to continue his run of good play to justify the price tag.
The Bad: For all the pretty goals and plays, the underlying numbers are concerning for Chychrun. Chychrun ended up with a team worst 49.04 xGF% (-3.35 xGF&Rel); only Dylan McIlrath had worse That’s not good, especially for a guy you just re-upped for $9M a year. Where he struggled was in constantly trying to do too much with every shift. It was always high-risk, high-reward potential, which led to some highlight plays and goals, but also led to a lot of turnovers that led to high-danger chances against. If the goalies weren’t on their game last season, the Caps could have lost a couple more games due to these errors.
The Video:
The Discussion: The numbers are great but the defensive play was concerning at times. Will Chychrun adapt his game? Is he ready to be the #1 go to guy on the backend? Will he live up to the $9M price tag?
The Vote: Rate Jakob Chychrun below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season – so if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.
