Thread: Kovalchuk a healthy scratch(Laugh at Ilya here)

While I agree with the assessment about Lou's style, and that this looks like an owner who wanted a sexy signing, don't you think that with this contract being so outrageous, Lou would have resigned? I'm scratching my head trying to figure out what is keeping Lou there. Surely, there would be no shortage of teams who would like to have his services.

BS. Yeah, I'm sure he wants to win and NJ is still a playoff team, but there are stronger teams with a better chance of getting to the cup. Plus, NJ ain't gonna be a contender for the next 15 years. The guy wanted to get paid and NJ offered him the most money.

I am hoping NJ falls on their face. I'll admit it. You can call it bitter, lame, immature, whatever. I'm rooting against them the same way I'm rooting against the Ducks. I find Kovi's motivation transparent. I think he wanted to get paid massively and he and his agent played the Kings like a pawn to extort the cash from NJ. If he truly wanted to win he'd have signed a short 1~2 year deal with one of the real contenders (Pitts, Detroit, Vancouver, Chicago, etc.), but he didn't. He wanted money and with the cap it's extremely hard for a team to pay top dollar for players and ice a great team.

Now he and NJ have the next 15 years to live with each other. I don't assume it'll be all bad, I'm sure he'll have good seasons, but I don't see the Devils getting any closer to the cup anytime soon.

What the hell happened to the Devils? Seriously, half of their players are barely AHL capable let alone NHL caliber. Its a venerable caldron of players no one has ever heard of.

I don't think you can blame Kovalchuk for all of the teams woes, but he sure makes a good scapegoat. And I seriously doubt signing Kovi was LL's idea. I still think that was ownership bypassing the general manager.

How old is Brodeur? 36, 38? Realistically the guy could still be a productive player for another couple years but the aging forwards seem to be killing the team. And the lack of defense isn't doing much to help their 'tenders.

Although I do think there is more to this than meets the eye, Maclean and his staff probably have all of about five more games to get their stuff together or out the door they will go.

Originally Posted by WuwuKennyWu

I really like reading the thread over at HF. Devils fans seem to think LA is butthurt we didn't get him.

At HF a lot of fans are being immature about it, some here as well. It's one thing to take pleasure personally in the Devils struggling. It's another thing to go and repeatedly post in threads over and over things like "HA HA" and "I hope the Devils miss the playoffs this year." It gives Kings fans a bad name. There are some people on both boards, here and there, that like talking hockey throughout the league and when people act immaturely about it, fans of other teams don't take Kings fans seriously.

I'm not upset that the Kings didn't get Kovalchuk. What annoys me about it is that I think Lombardi was trying to play within the rules to get Kovalchuk and I don't know that the Devils were. That's what annoys me. If both teams were operating on an even playing field and Kovalchuk thought the Devils gave him the best chance to win, then ok, good luck in New Jersey. I think Lombardi was always concerned about trying to craft a contract that wouldn't get tagged by the league for circumvention and I don't think the Devils cared that much about it, thus the $20 mil difference in offers. I'm curious what the Devils offer would have been if they had been a bit more concerned about the cap. Maybe it still would have been tons more than LA's anyways. Just looking back at the whole thing, I don't know that Lombardi ever really stood a chance to sign Kovalchuk.

Originally Posted by shoot2scor

Consider me on this bandwagon, in fact I will help navigate!

I'm definately in!

Originally Posted by Gimp_Stick

What the hell happened to the Devils? Seriously, half of their players are barely AHL capable let alone NHL caliber. Its a venerable caldron of players no one has ever heard of.

I don't think you can blame Kovalchuk for all of the teams woes, but he sure makes a good scapegoat. And I seriously doubt signing Kovi was LL's idea. I still think that was ownership bypassing the general manager.

How old is Brodeur? 36, 38? Realistically the guy could still be a productive player for another couple years but the aging forwards seem to be killing the team. And the lack of defense isn't doing much to help their 'tenders.

Although I do think there is more to this than meets the eye, Maclean and his staff probably have all of about five more games to get their stuff together or out the door they will go.

Brodeur is 38, will be 39 next May.

As for their problems right now they have some injuries, quite a few guys are struggling. They're not icing a full lineup some nights. I think they've got some better prospects down in the minors but can't recall them because they make more than some of the other guys and they're low on cap space, although that might have changed some since Rolston got hurt. If you have a few players making up a big portion of your cap, you're not going to be able to have the depth throughout the entire roster unless you also have some good youngsters on rookie contracts. You can't have a bad contract and they have Rolston's. Kovalchuk, Elias, and Brodeur are taking up a good amount of money obviously. Rolston's contract is killing them becuase he's overpaid by a good $3 mil. Arnott at $4.5 mil is a bit pricey, Zubrus is a bit overpaid at $3.4 mil, and I'm not sure why they're paying Hedberg $1.5 mil to be Brodeur's backup when he'll hardly play.

I think there's a lot of tension in the locker room because the players know that some of their higher priced guys are going to need to be moved because of cap space. They've got guys they would want to move but can't because of bad contracts/NTCs. Someone like Langenbrunner, who's been there for 7 and a half years, can see the writing on the wall. I'm sure there's some resentment on his part. I'm sure the players just want the whole cap fiasco to be sorted out. That can't make you very comfortable, knowing some roster moves have to come, but you're not sure when, and you know it's likely to be someone who you've played with for a long time.

That's not a good defense in front of Brodeur, so he's looked vulnerable, similar to the defense in Anaheim. We all saw what Quick looked like after playing 72 games last year. Other than 08-98 where Brodeur was injured, he hasn't played under 70 games going back to 96-97. Since he became their full time starter in 95, he's only played under 70 games twice, and one of those years he played in 67 games. Factor in 3 Stanley Cup runs, the Devils being out of the playoffs once in his career, Olympics and tournaments like that and he's played a ton of hockey. For a comparison, Roy never started more than 68 regular season games. That would be Brodeur's 2nd fewest games since becoming a starter. At some point Brodeur is going to slow down. Is that this year?

Even the second-worst team in the KHL, Metallurg Novokuznetsk, has more points than The Devils. Granted they have played a few more games, but, at the rate NJ are going, I can see them having a similar record...

KHL Stats

Originally Posted by Dante Poe

Even the second-worst team in the KHL, Metallurg Novokuznetsk, has more points than The Devils. Granted they have played a few more games, but, at the rate NJ are going, I can see them having a similar record...

KHL Stats

So maybe Kovi should had gone to the KHL. :P