Here are some highlights from John Chayka's first few months as Arizona's General Manager:
May 2016, Arizona hires John Chayka at 26 years-old. Youngest GM in league history.
June 16th, ~ a month into the job, acquires veteran Dallas Stars defenceman Alex Goligoski for a 5th round pick.
June 20th, trades Maxim Letunov 6th round pick for a 3rd and a 4th. Letunov, who's a former 2nd round pick, would go on to play a total of 3 NHL games.
June 24th, at the draft. Selects Clayton Keller at 7th overall. In a redraft, the only players selected ahead of him who would still be ahead of him today are Auston Matthews and Matthew Tkachuk. The Keller pick surprised many people. He was expected to draft a defenceman - but then Chayka traded up from 20th overall to select Jakob Chychrun, who fell to 16. They took on Pavel Datysuk's contract to make this work. Imagine... a cap floor team weaponizing cap space.
Day 2 of the same draft, they traded a 2nd round pick for Anthony Deangelo.
Star swipe to a month later, August 25th. The Coyotes acquire Lawson Crouse (drafted #11 overall the year prior) and Dave Bolland's contract for a 3rd round pick a conditional 2nd. Crouse had never played a game with the Panthers. How many times have fans in Toronto said "We don't need to sign Sam Bennett. We need to find the next Sam Bennett." Look, I'm not saying Crouse is Bennett, but this is exactly that type of deal.