This team needs a proper good start next year more than anything.
In spite of some of his defensive shortcomings, Chychrun seemed to take off season preparation seriously and came to play last October.
15 games in, Chychrun had a stat line of 5-7-12, +2, with 6 PPP. Was point per game through 11, and had a 6 game point streak with points in 9 of 15 games. The team had a record of 8-7. The Sweden trip seemed to derail their play from then onwards. Stutzle had started with 20 points and was a plus player in that timeframe, and his production tapered. Could have been around then when he got banged up, and our centre depth was shot, torpedoing the team's chances.
Meanwhile, Chabot only played the first 7 games of the year before getting hurt, racking up just 3 assists, none on the PP, and went -1. Only had points in 2 of those first 7 games. Not good.
2022-2023, Chabot started that same sample size with 3-4-7, -3, with 4 PPP. Pointless in 9 of those first 15.
2021-2022, Chabot started 0-6-6, +3, 3 PPP, pointless in 11 of the first 15.
2020-2021, he started 3-4-7, -6, 2 PPP, and pointless in 9 of the first 15.
2019-2020, he began 1-8-9, -3, 2 PPP, pointless in 7 of the first 15.
All this to say, Chabot hasn't had a convincing start to the season in the past several years. He's had one quality start to a season in his entire career, when he began hot in 2018-2019 with 4-16-20, +1, 6 PPP, pointless in just 2 of first 15.
That dynamic version of him was toasted with several seasons of heavy usage. I suspect we can all agree that in spite of finally achieving some built in redundancy and support for Chabot on this roster this year, he was still unable to return to the form we saw out of him early in his career, and it's safe to assume he simply is what he is now.
With $10m payout this upcoming year, and a pattern of middling starts for a team that desperately needs leadership and defensive progress, I would move on from Chabot at whatever the (reasonable) cost. It's just too much of a gamble, and we need players who launch out of the gate.
I also could see us moving on from Chychrun simultaneously, but I do appreciate that he has shown the ability to contribute to a hot start.