It’s not often that GMs talk in great length about trades they’ve made, especially when it comes to the finer details of how the transaction came together. In the case of Jakob Chychrun coming to the Ottawa Senators, GM Pierre Dorion isn’t hiding much, speaking with the Cam and Strick podcast about why the deal took so long to consummate and his thoughts about where the Senators would have been if they’d been able to finalize the trade sooner than they ultimately did.
Dorion was a guest on the show and noted that the trade that saw Ottawa add defenseman Jakob Chychurn was almost a year in the making.
He said, “In a trade like Chychrun, you know, you’re dealing with a GM that is very stubborn, and he’s admitted to me that he’s very stubborn, and he was going to wait until he got what he wanted.” Dorion added, ” I think what helped us was that other teams, Arizona had to take money and in our case, we didn’t have to take money, it was just a straight hockey deal, you know it was a year and a half in the making almost and we were fortunate enough to get, wow, a hell of a player.”
Dorion went on to talk about how good Chychrun is, saying he’s better than he thought he was going to be. Noting that he doesn’t heap praise like that onto people lightly, he talked about how Chychrun snaps the puck around and his shot, but also his defensive acumen, something he doesn’t think the player gets enough credit for. He then contended that had the Senators been able to pull of that trade earlier, things this season might have been different.
Dorion Believes Sens a Playoff Team With Chychrun on Roster Longer
Had Chychrun played more than 12 games for the Senators, Dorion wonders if the team would have been in the playoffs. But, because Arizona held out for so long and didn’t make the deal until just before the NHL Trade Deadline, Ottawa (who wanted the player all season long) couldn’t use him as much as they would have liked.
He noted, “He solidified our back end like no one else has.” He added, “I’m not saying we’d be Florida now, but we might have been playing in the playoffs.”
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