In hockey terms, John Chaykas contemporaries include the likes of , Patrick Kane, , Jakub Voracek and . His peers, however, are now people like Stan Bowman, Dean Lombardi, Steve Yzerman, Jim Rutherford and 73-year-old Lou Lamoriello.The 26-year-old Chayka (pronounced SHUY-ka) is now the general manager for a team in a major profe sional sports league. The hockey operations decisions for the will end with him making the final decision. He is believed to be the youngest GM not only in NHL history, but in the history of North American major league sports.The Coyotes made the formal announcement Thursday and the shockwaves are still being felt acro s the hockey world.In addition to Chayka being inserted into the GMs role, head coach Dave Tippett has been given a new title -- executive vice president of hockey operations -- on top of his coaching duties and will have input in hockey operations decisions. The team also revealed that part-owner Gary Drummond has been named president of hockey operations, meaning Chayka and Tippett will be reporting to him. The hockey operations decision making ultimately rests squarely Bogdan Bogdanovic Jersey with Chayka. The team will also be hiring an a sistant GM in the near future, likely someone with a longer history in the league.Chayka takes on this big role after just one year with the team. He was hired away from his succe sful sports analytics firm called Stathletes, Inc., to be the teams a sistant GM at just 25 years old. Stathletes specializes in extensive player tracking through video analysis to help provide a more objective team and player evaluation. That will obviously also be part of what the Coyotes do, though they arent getting terribly specific on what theyre doing behind the scenes, which is hardly a surprise.The young Ontario native also played the game, going the Junior A route as a youngster in hopes of playing college hockey. However, he sustained a career-ending injury at 19 years old. Chayka probably didnt realize then that his injury would put him on the fast track to the NHL. The Coyotes are going way outside the box here, obviously. Hockey has very much been stuck in the "Old Boys' Club." Theres a sense that one has to pay his dues to get a job of this magnitude, but it is clear that the organization thinks their young GM is the best fit to push their organization forward. In the end, thats the only thing that matters internally.There is bound to be skepticism about Chaykas abilities. After all, he was a veritable unknown in the hockey world when he first took the Coyotes AGM job. Even the public analytics community didnt know much about him beyond the company he was running hockey analysis for and even that came with limited notoriety. Now hes going to be going toe-to-toe in negotiations with long-standing player agents and experienced executives. This is a big job for a person of any age.There were and are a lot of a sistant GMs and unemployed GMs out there that would have brought a lot more experience, but if there is a franchise that can use a little new-age thinking, its probably the Coyotes. Theyre an organization thats already in transition. They have mostly fresh owners, with the current group coming out of their third full season of ownership. The team is also expected to move into a new arena after next season as their relationship with the city of Glendale broke down last year amid a lease dispute. The Coyotes also have an impre sive group of young NHL players and one of the more loaded stables of prospects in the league. They're moving in a new direction regardle s.However, they have to plot this new direction rather carefully and in a sport like hockey, there's really no one right way to do it. So this new path being forged by the Coyotes very well could be a fruitful one. It's just going to take time to find out.What will be interesting to see is how the team handles this new structure. Tippett is an experienced head coach who obviously has his own ideas of the kind of hockey they should play. It's been no secret just how sick he is of all the losing his team has done over these last few years. He may be looking at a shorter path to get back to competitivene s, but as we've seen with teams trying to build anew, shortcuts usually don't work so well. However, Tippett was also extremely complimentary of Chaykas approach during Thursday's news conference, noting that the new GM manages to use analytics, but to also uses what Tippett called a common sense approach to hockey operations. Tippett is going to provide the dose of old school to this new school management team and perhaps that balance is a good thing.An instant comparable to Chayka is Theo Epstein, who was 28 years old when he took over the Boston Red Sox. While Epstein was and is a big analytics proponent himself, he also had deep-pocketed owners who were willing to spend whatever it would take to bring a World Series to the city of Boston.Chayka is not going to have such a luxury. Theres the salary cap to contend with and its never been made all that clear just how much money the ownership group is willing to spend on payroll. With the plethora of prospects that will be coming in on entry-level contracts over the next two to three years, they shouldnt have to spend big right away anyway. That said, Chaykas going to have to show some creativity to help get this team over the hump as they try to compete with the major teams in the NHL sooner than later. He also has some big shoes to fill as Don Maloney had the unenviable job of trying to pilot this franchise through multiple instances of ownership uncertainty and even NHL control of the team. Maloneys firing came as a big surprise to many as he had started putting the pieces back together to get this team back on track. Now the baton is pa sed to someone whos never dealt with this kind of responsibility before.Communication is going to be a big key, as was made abundantly clear during Thursday's conference. A lack of communication and collaboration may have also been what led to Maloney being shown the door. Chayka promised not to be an authoritarian leader, but the Robert Woodard II Jersey Coyotes also have to be wary of too many cooks in the kitchen. Ultimately, there is going to have to be one decisive leader to help pull this team into a new era and they've picked someone who is going to be learning on the job.It's a risk, no doubt. This decision could very well could be one of the most important this franchise ever makes given the position they're in right now with a host of talented youngsters and some cornerstone pieces to build around. Its going to be absolutely fascinating to see how it turns out.
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