Chychrun would’ve been one of the top UFAs available this summer.

• Player Overview
• Comparables
• Final Analysis

The Washington Capitals signed defenseman Jakob Chychrun to an eight-year contract extension on Tuesday, which carries a $9 million cap hit. The deal kicks in for the 2025-26 season and comes with a no-movement clause, which becomes a partial no-trade clause in 2028.

Below, we examine how the deal looks for Washington, and whether they got fair value, or overpaid.

Player Overview

Selected 16th overall by the Arizona Coyotes in 2016, Jakob Chychrun made the jump right to the NHL for the following season. He quickly emerged as a key part of the team’s blue line, and despite struggling to stay healthy at times, he was already taking on a huge role by his early 20s.

However, with the Coyotes in a full teardown and building a pool of future assets, Chychrun was shipped to the Ottawa Senators ahead of the 2023 trade deadline. While he seemed poised to help solidify the team’s defense group, his fit seemed to be in question at times over his tenure in Ottawa, with the Senators also having two other left-side defenders in Thomas Chabot and Jake Sanderson. So with a year remaining on his contract and coming off somewhat of a mixed year, Chychrun was dealt to the Washington Capitals last summer.

With the Capitals, Chychrun has seen a huge bounce-back year, becoming a big part of the team’s surprise success.

Chychrun has put together one of the best seasons of his career, and has already set a career-high in points. He’s a clear scoring threat (with 18 goals this season), and at his best, he can also be sound defensively and effective in battles.

Had Chychrun made it to free agency, he would’ve been one of the top names available.

Comparables

Below we take a look at comparables for Chychrun’s eight-year deal. Comparables will generally include defensemen who were between 25 and 29 years old in the first year of their contract, with Chychrun set to begin his extension at 27 years old.

The table will include the comparable defenders’ production and ice time in their signing year, and over their career. It’ll also include their cap hit in the first year of their contract, and their adjusted cap hit on an $95.5M salary cap.

8 YEARS

A maximum-term contract was always likely for Chychrun, based on his age, production and usage. Whether that was eight years in Washington or seven years in free agency, the maximum term itself was expected.

In terms of how Chychrun’s production lines up against comparables, both his signing year numbers and career numbers look similar to a lot of comps around the same range.

Notably, Chychrun had very similar production to the likes of Charlie McAvoy, Darnell Nurse, Victor Hedman and Morgan Rielly.

However, what stands out about Chychrun compared to many of the other higher-priced, eight-year contracts is the difference in usage. At least in terms of signing year ice time, Chychrun was significantly lower than any of the comps higher on the table. All of the top 10 comps on the table were playing over 23 minutes per game in their signing year, compared to Chychrun slightly below 21 minutes.

Even in terms of career ice time, the strong majority of defenders, especially higher on the table, were all tasked with a larger role over their respective careers. So while Chychrun’s production may be important, it’s also key to point out that a lot of the comps were relied upon for bigger minutes as well. Looking at the comps who signed contracts at an adjusted cap hit of $9.5M or more (Carlson and above), and there’s a discrepancy in usage, even if production is fairly similar.

At the same time, Chychrun’s production was also drastically higher than a lot of the comps lower down the table, along with having similar ice time. So based on a similar role with much higher production, it’s clear to see why Chychrun’s cap hit came in much higher than the likes of Colton Parayko and Hampus Lindholm ($6.93M adjusted cap hits).

I think perhaps two of the more realistic comps for Chychrun were Morgan Rielly ($7.5M) and Noah Hanifin ($7.35M).

Rielly ($8.7M adjusted cap hit) had extremely similar production both over his signing year, and his career. However, he was also tasked with a larger role than Chychrun in his signing year.

With Hanifin though, the production was similar, but Chychrun was a little bit higher in both his signing year and career. Then while Hanifin did play a larger role in his signing year, his career ice time aligned much more closely to Chychrun’s usage, with Chychrun being counted on for slightly more minutes over his career.

As a result, there does seem to be a bit of a range set by these comps that made sense for Chychrun on an eight-year deal, roughly between $8M and $8.7M per year, based on the adjusted cap hits of Rielly and Hanifin.

Final Analysis

With Chychrun still only just about to turn 27 years old and in the midst of an excellent year, extending him made sense for the Capitals.

The term on the deal also comes as no suprise. If the Capitals weren’t willing to offer an eight-year contract, someone else would’ve surely offered seven years in free agency.

At the same time, his $9M cap hit maybe a bit of an overpay. There’s no guarantee that Chychrun will be able to replicate this production long-term, with his 2024-25 pace far exceeding his career numbers.

Even factoring in the rising cap, it seems like somewhere a bit north of $8M may have been fair value for the defenseman, but it’s perhaps a bit tougher to justify $9M.