Chayka is an incredibly rangy defensive defenseman with a real knack for breaking up opposing plays. He is agile and athletic with long, smooth skating strides, and when you combine it with his size and his reach it gives him an excellent range of territory when he’s out on the ice. Not only is he great at stepping up to close gaps and take away space, he is also very aggressive and calculated about when he does it, applying pressure at the right times without making himself vulnerable. He’s a hard defender to get the puck through or around, showing a lot of proficiency for breaking up opposing possession by stealing pucks or winning it through stick battles. Chayka has the quickness and puckhandling abilities necessary to escape pressure by himself in his own zone, though he doesn’t have the hands or the attacker mentality to be a true puck rusher. He’s much happier to pass the puck up to one of his forwards while he hangs back, which will be an area of focus in his future development. He displays good instincts from the offensive blue line and gets a lot of power behind his shots, though they’re a little wild and he could be more assertive about making that a key part of his game. While his skating is overall pretty good for a defenseman his size, he will need to sharpen his edgework and improve the quickness and fluidity of his pivots to help deal with faster opponents at the next level. His passes are surprisingly slow and weak as well, as he applys too soft of a touch and not enough urgency. Chayka doesn’t flash a lot of creativity with his puck movement. You’d like to see him have more bite in the gritty areas of the ice, he seems like a guy who could get outworked at higher levels by hungry opponents who are smaller than he is. Chayka stood out in the 2019-20 season in the OHL, but heading back to Russia for the 2020-21 campaign has proven to be a challenge. His development seems to have stagnated with could be a red flag for NHL teams.

– FCHockey’s 2021 NHL Draft Guide