Coyotes make John Chayka, 26, youngest GM in NHL history

The NHL’s toe dip into the world of advanced statistics looked more like a big splash Thursday when the Arizona Coyotes promoted 26-year-old John Chayka, making him the youngest general manager ever among the major professional sports leagues in North America.

For perspective, Toronto General Manager Lou Lamoriello, at 73, could be Chayka’s grandfather. There are no thirty-something general managers in the NHL. The closest to Chayka’s age among the men he could be making trades with would be 42-year-old Stan Bowman of Chicago and the recently promoted Pierre Dorion of Ottawa, who is 43.

Previously, the youngest GM in the NHL had been Gord Stellick, who was 30 when the Toronto Maple Leafs promoted him in 1988.

Arizona’s front-office restructuring included the increased influence of Coyotes Coach Dave Tippett, who was named executive vice president of hockey operations and was given a five-year contract extension. There are plenty of excellent hockey minds in the organization – including former NHL coach Dave King who is an advisor to Tippett – and the Coyotes intend to hire another experienced hand to round out the front office.

Chayka was an assistant general manager for the past year under the Don Maloney regime in Arizona. Maloney, who was fired in April, worked under the twin pressures of a tight budget and persistent uncertainty about the franchise’s future.

“We realized that we have a limited margin of error here, if any margin of error at all,” Chayka said on a conference call with a handful of reporters on Thursday.

That answer came at the end of his response to a question about his experiences with two start-ups. The Canadian-born Chayka co-founded a hockey analytics firm in 2009 when he was at school at Western Ontario in London.

“One of the things I can tell you right off the top: growth isn’t linear,” he said. “There’s going to be times of adversity and times where things are difficult. Quality of the business comes down to the quality of the people….when we’re solid here, we feel we’re going to be solid on the ice.

“My approach for my company was always I had to give my company every last drop of water, every last scrap of food and I had to do whatever I could to make that a profitable business. I had to make some tough decisions. I had to do some things that maybe I wouldn’t have liked to do but I had to do it to be profitable.”

As for the history-making implications of the promotion?

“Not a very reflective guy … in general,” Chayka said. “Maybe that’s why I can continue to push forward. … Maybe one day it will sink in a little bit deeper.”

Follow Lisa Dillman on Twitter: @reallisa