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Chychrun latest Coyotes’ youngster to sign long-term

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The St. Louis Blues take on the Chicago Blackhawks during Wednesday Night Hockey on November 14, with coverage beginning at 7:00 p.m. ET

Defenseman Jakob Chychrun will be making his 2018-19 season debut for the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday night in Detroit after missing the first 16 games while recovering from a torn ACL suffered last season.

His season debut is only the second biggest piece of news regarding him on Tuesday.

Less than an hour before puck drop, the Coyotes announced that the 20-year-old Chychrun has signed a six-year contract extension with the team. Financial terms of the deal were not released, but Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports it will pay him $4.6 million per season, which comes out to a total of $27.6 million over the duration of the contract.

Chychrun would have been a restricted free agent after this season.

This is the second young player the Coyotes have locked up to a long-term deal over the past few months, following the six-year, $27 million contract Christian Dvorak signed back in August.

“We are extremely pleased to sign Jakob to a six-year contract extension,” general manager John Chayka said in a team statement.

“Jakob is a young, highly skilled defenseman with an incredibly bright future. He has battled through some adversity with injuries the last two years, but we remain confident that he has the necessary size, talent and work ethic to be one of our core players for many years to come.”

The injuries that Chayka mentions have limited Chychrun, the No. 16 overall pick in the 2016 draft, to just 118 total games over the first two years of his career, making this a pretty significant commitment for a player that doesn’t really have an extensive track record in the NHL. Even so, there is no doubt the potential is there, and if Chychrun is able to follow the same path he has started on and -- most importantly -- is able to stay healthy there is a very good chance that he can end up outperforming this contract while still being in the prime of his career when it ends (which would be good news for him).

When he has been healthy Chychrun has showed plenty of promise, especially offensively where he has already tallied 11 goals and 23 assists.

When it comes to the short-term outlook, Chychrun’s return will be a big boost to a Coyotes team that has been playing some outstanding hockey over the past couple of weeks. Arizona enters Tuesday’s game in Detroit as one of the league’s top defensive teams and is 7-3-1 in its past 11 games.

With Chychrun in the lineup the Coyotes now have six regulars in their lineup age 22 or younger, and that does not include Dvorak (age 22) who is currently on injured reserve and yet to appear in a game this season.

They now have nine players signed through at least the 2020-21 season, with three of them (Chychrun, Dvorak, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson) signed through at least the 2024-25 season.

MORE: Your 2018-19 NHL on NBC TV schedule

Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.