Acquisition of Jason Arnott doesn't take Devils out of Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes

Acquisition of Jason Arnott doesn't take Devils out of Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes
Richard Chere The Star Ledger June 19, 2010

Jason Arnott brings size, strength, a powerful shot and experience to the Devils.

The veteran center also brings a $4.5 million salary.

But Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello said Arnott’s salary doesn’t take the Devils out of the running to possibly sign both defenseman Paul Martin and winger Ilya Kovalchuk. Both can become unrestricted free agents July 1.

“No. You have to do other things to make room,” the GM said. “We didn’t win. We’re going to have to make some changes. There are going to be some changes that might surprise some people.


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Kovalchuk and Volchenkov, 1 and 3 respectively in Yahoo! Sports Top 50 Free agents

The NHL's top 50 unrestricted free agents
Sam McCraig Yahoo! Sports June 16, 2010

NHL free agency begins on July 1, the date when most of the league’s general managers leave sanity behind and spend ownership’s money faster than you can say “salary cap.”

Here’s a look at the top 50 players who are eligible for unrestricted free agency:

1. Ilya Kovalchuk, LW, NJ – Goals, speed and superstar street cred. Kovalchuk is easily the most talented player on the open market...


3. Anton Volchenkov, D, Ott – A shot-blocking, bodychecking, stay-at-home stud...few defensemen are more proficient in their own zone than Volchenkov.

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The Province's UFA of the Day -- Ilya Kovalchuk

Mike Halford The Province June 15, 2010

From now until June 30, we'll be taking a daily look at this year's unrestricted free agency class. Today's UFA of the Day? Ilya Kovalchuk.

Age: 27

NHL seasons: 8

2009-10 team/salary: Atlanta Thrashers/New Jersey Devils, $6.4 million

Why teams might want him: If there's a (goalscoring) problem yo, he'll solve it.

Point blank, Kovalchuk is a consistently elite sniper. He's posted six straight 40-goal seasons (and two 50-plus goal campaigns) which, in terms of goalscoring prowess, puts him in some pretty rarefied air. Since the lockout, only Alexander Ovechkin has scored more goals -- that puts Kovy ahead of snipe shows like Dany Heatley, Sidney Crosby, Marian Gaborik, Jarome Iginla and Marian Hossa, to name a few.

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What Would You Do To Land the Most Prized UFA?

What Would You Do To Land the Most Prized UFA?
Michelle Kenneth, Michelle Kenneth's Hockey and Musings Blog, June 8, 2010


The #1 UFA approaching the market is none other than Ilya Kovalchuk.

While most people think that Kovalchuk will sign in the KHL (because who wouldn’t want to be paid an exorbitant amount of money for a short amount of time), whoever said that Kovalchuk was all about money?

There are elements that people leave out in how Kovalchuk will make his decision. The #1 factor…Kovalchuk is a family man. He wants to go to a FAMILY ORIENTED TEAM.

There are things that Kovalchuk changed about the way he played and the way he was a team member, just to fit into the dynamics of the New Jersey Devils for a few months. What makes you think he wasn’t INTERVIEWING the Devils for the job as his new workplace?

Kovalchuk can go to just about any team in the world right now. But where he ends up going has everything to do with where he wants to relocate his family. Kovalchuk is a family man, so his decisions will be purely based on what team and location will benefit his family the most.


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Inside Kovalchuk's value, where he will sign as free-agent star

Dmitry Chesnokov Yahoo! Sports Puck Daddy June 5, 2010

There is no name entering this summer's free agency bigger than Ilya Kovalchuk.

Come to think of it, there has not been a player entering the free agency bigger than Ilya Kovalchuk in the "new" salary cap NHL. Some arguments may be made about players like Marian Hossa or Brian Campbell. But they are just not on the same level.

A few things will come into play when Kovalchuk makes his career choice this summer: He is looking for commitment, which means there will be no 1-year deals for a chance at the Cup. He wants the team he chooses to be a contender throughout his stay there. Compensation is also very important. And the city is important -- Kovalchuk has three children.

What about the money? How could he have turned down $100 million with the Atlanta Thrashers? And how much is he looking to get?

First of all, all that talk about the KHL is just lunacy. There is no chance he is going back to Russia, regardless of how many oil dollars they try to throw at him.

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For Devils, Kovalchuk Means Much More than Goals and Assists

The Devil's Advocate June 4, 2010

On the evening of February 4, GM Lou Lamoriello galvanized the fanbase and his slumping team behind the explosive Russian sniper Ilya Kovalchuk, the league’s most prolific scorer since 2004; and while Kovalchuk did not deliver the astronomical offensive production the Devils hoped for and needed, he did provide flashes of brilliance and a boatload of heart, something his teammates sorely lacked during their swift playoff exit.

Kovalchuk wasn’t flawless by any means, though. He frequently turned over the puck on the powerplay, and his insistence on skating through the entire opposing team was often met by pokechecks and groans from wide-open teammates. Yet his persistence and physicality was admirable, particularly considering the rest of the team looked nauseatingly indifferent. Kovalchuk’s ten goals were not enough to revitalize the Devils’ offense, but he was a point-per-game player in twenty seven regular season games and five playoff contests.

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Kovalchuk and Volchenkov, 1 and 3 respectively in Fanhouse Top 50 Free agents

NHL free agency begins July 1, as teams begin to wine and dine players hitting the market in hopes of filling holes and landing the guy they think can get them closer to the Stanley Cup.

Below, we rank the Top 50 unrestricted free agents available. Restricted free agents weren't included because their movement is rare. After the first five or six players there's a pretty significant drop in terms of impact players. It's a shallow pool for forwards, and a bit deeper for defensemen. Shot-blocking, stay-at-home defensemen appear to be the strength.

Also note that this list would have included Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne, two unrestricted free agents, but both players are expected to either re-sign with their current team, the Ducks, or retire. Another team seems very unlikely for both

1. ILYA KOVALCHUK, F

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Age: 26 | Experience: 8 years | '09-10 Team: Thrashers/Devils

2009-10 Stats: 41 g | 44 a | 85 pt

The Skinny: There's only a small handful of quality wingers available in this year's free agent market, and Kovalchuk is the easily the best of the bunch. One of the most explosive goal-scorers in the NHL, Kovalchuk is coming off his sixth-straight 40-goal season and is going to command top dollar on the open market. It's not often that a player this talented, this young, becomes available on the open market to the highest bidder.


3. ANTON VOLCHENKOV, D

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Age: 28 | Experience: 7 years | '09-10 Team: Senators

2009-10 Stats: 4 g | 10 a | 14 pt

The Skinny: One of the best shutdown defensemen in the NHL and still on the right side of 30, Volchenkov is set to strike it rich on the free agent market, perhaps commanding a deal north of $5 million per season. After seeing the success of players like Hal Gill and Josh Gorges in the postseason, why wouldn't a team want to invest in one of the best defensive-defenseman in the NHL?



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The Kovalchuk Effect: Examining What Ilya Kovalchuk Has Brought To New Jersey And How Much He Means To The Franchise

Will Kovalchuk Remain With Devils?
Michelle Kenneth Yardbarker.com May 27, 2010

There are a lot of dynamics that go into a successful team. For the Devils, Lou Lamoriello makes sure that the person he selects to add to his roster is an individual that he knows will fit into the locker room.

For Ilya Kovalchuk, he seemed to be a perfect fit to the roster. His passion to join a team that could win was more important than the dollars and cents in the end. He proved that by turning down the $101 Million, 12-year contract offer from the Atlanta Thrashers. He also followed it up by telling the press in New Jersey that he wanted to be part of a winning team. He would take a pay cut if that’s what it meant to remain a part of a winning team.

For Devils management, that is music to their ears.

As the rumors are currently running rampant that Kovalchuk already has two KHL offers on the table, it could be just a ploy (by announcing it in the media) to get the Russian more money from NHL teams. Just how much are the Devils willing to pay Kovalchuk to keep the superstar there?

You can look at the stats all you want. You can look at the salary cap all you want. What I’m looking at is just how valuable it is to the Devils to keep the happy Russian on their roster.

The comparison between Kovalchuk and Zach Parise has been made constantly over the past few months. In the dollars and cents category, it’s not Parise that brings the masses to Prudential Center. He never has. In Kovalchuk’s short amount of time with the Devils, the numbers at Prudential Center have skyrocketed. Sales for Kovalchuk Devils merchandise also skyrocketed. It was such a hot item, the words, “Sorry, we’re sold out,” could be heard coming from the lips of various retailers.

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Former Devils coach Jacques Lemaire defends decisions made during season

Jacques Lemaire believes the Devils could still be playing hockey this spring.

During almost a month of vacation in Florida since he announced his retirement on April 26, Lemaire has watched the Stanley Cup playoffs and feels the Devils could have been the team coming out of the Eastern Conference.

“We all tried to find the reason why we lost. That’s normal,” Lemaire told The Star-Ledger today. “But criticism shouldn’t be part of trying to find what we could have done differently. To me you have to be objective.”

Lemaire has come under criticism from several Devils players, including captain Jamie Langenbrunner, for the way he handled several team matters during the second half of the season.

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Ilya Kovalchuk Sparkled for Russia

Ilya Kovalchuk Sparkled for Russia; Andy Greene did not for USA - Summary of Devils at 2010 World Championships
John Fischer In Lou We Trust May 23, 2010

Kovalchuk shouldn't feel too bad about his own performance. While the IIHF directorate named his teammate Datsyuk the best forward of the tournament and the media snubbed him for their all-stars, Kovalchuk led the World Championships in points with 2 goals and 10 assists along with 15 shots and an average ice time of 16:52. So much for Kovalchuk being a selfish player. The coaches named him Russia's best forward. He certainly made his mark. All stats are viewable at the IIHF's statistics page which has all this information in PDFs for some inexplicable reason.

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Ilya Kovalchuk's 2009-2010 GVT Suggests His Defense Is Better Than Evengi Malkin

Ilya Kovalchuk Contributed More on Defense than Evgeni Malkin - A Look at Kovalchuk's 2009-10 GVT
John Fischer In Lou We Trust May 19, 2010

Ilya Kovalchuk is a fantastic sniper, a player who has put up 338 goals and 304 assists in 621 games. Standing officially at 6'2" and 230 pounds, Kovalchuk will be one of the hottest names on the free agency market this summer. The New Jersey Devils swung a deal in early February to pick up the erstwhile face of the Atlanta Thrasher franchise and ended up having a good, but not special time in New Jersey. He led the Devils in playoff scoring, but given how the Devils got eliminated, not many are likely going to use his playoff performance as reason why he'll command big dollars this summer.

Shortly after the playoffs, I defended the deal. It was a deal that had to be made. Now Kovalchuk has the option to test the waters for himself. He's in the prime of his career and he's really a special player even beyond the fact that he leads all active NHL players under 30 in goals. Based on observation, it's noticeable that Kovalchuk's puck handling is amazing; he's probably the only Devil who can take on a defenseman and win a one-on-one more than just occasionally; and he can get a shot off from anywhere on the ice.

The advanced statistics interest me more, and not just because they remove confirmation and observation bias. They can go into depth into how well Kovalchuk performed. Maybe we'll learn something beyond the narrative around Kovalchuk. Maybe it can provide a little suggestion into why Lou has begun talks with Kovalchuk's agent, Jay Grossman, about a contract before Paul Martin and his people were contacted, as per Tom Gulitti's article at NorthJersey.com. (Thanks to ILWT reader Bill for the heads-up via e-mail.) Maybe we'll find something about him that we won't particularly miss should he go elsewhere.

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Ilya Kovalchuk Assists Twice In 5-0 Win Over Finland, Getting Ready For Canada

Russian power play
Beats Finland, wins group, gets ready for Canada.

Russia rolled over Finland, 5-0, getting goals by five different players and a shutout by Semyon Varlamov. Ilya Kovalchuk got two assists and Maxim Afinogenov a goal and an assist.

"With the new rules it is all about special teams and I think our penalty killing was great and the power play worked tonight. It is important for the quarterfinal," Kovalchuk said.

The last time Russia left a World Championship rink as a loser was in Moscow in 2007 when they lost to the Finns 2-1 in overtime. Since then, the team has raked in 23 wins. Before their game against Finland. Now the win count is 24.

Finland started the game strong, they came out of the gate like they meant business. And they did. Finland pressured the Russian defencemen, and created several good scoring chances. Unfortunately for the Finns, when it was time to put the puck to the back of the net, they hit the post instead. Four times.

"They played very well in the beginning," Kovalchuk admitted.

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A Reason to Support Ilya Kovalchuk - The 2009-10 New Jersey Devils Roster by PDO

One of the big reasons I'm so interested in advanced statistics is because they provide a different perspective into a player's performance. For example, we know that Ilya Kovalchuk is a goal scorer. He's scored 338 goals in 631 games in his NHL career. This is simple. But how impressive has been his performances? What can help explain his exceptional results?

Well, here's one way: his PDO is quite impressive.

What's PDO? Well, it doesn't stand for anything in particular, as far as I know; but it's meaning is real. PDO is the summation of a team's or a player's on-ice shooting percentage and on-ice save percentage at even strength (5-on-5) play. What makes PDO stand out is that it can quickly show whether a team or player is above the base value of 1. Higher is better, lower is worse, and that's simple. More importantly, as Tyler Dellow found way back in 2008, is that it's usually an unsustainable value. A team's or player's PDO will regress towards their true mean over time. The exceptionally talented player will be able to maintain a PDO above 1 consistently.

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Russian streak continues at Worlds: Kovalchuk tied for team lead with five points in five games

Ilya Kovalchuk's line with Pavel Datsyuk and Evgeni Malkin has Russia on a roll at the 2010 IIHF World Championship in Germany.

Led by Datsyuk's hat trick, the trio collected 10 points in Sunday's 6-1 win over Denmark. Kovalchuk, the Russian captain, tallied three assists and is tied with Alex Ovechkin for the team points lead with two goals and three assists in five games.

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Kovalchuk-Malkin-Datsyuk Russian Super Line Collects 10 Points in 6-1 Victory Over Denmark

Russia's sweet 23
Datsyuk gets hat trick, Russia its 23 straight win at the Worlds
IIHF May 16, 2010

Pavel Datsyuk scored a hat trick and Alexander Ovechkin kept his goal streak going, adding his fifth in the tournament in as many games. The Kovalchuk-Malkin-Datsyuk line collected ten points as Russia beat Denmark 6-1.

Russia now hasn’t lost a World Championship game since the 2-1 overtime loss to Finland in 2007.

"We wanted to make sure that we'd respect Denmark, and play organized hockey, and we did just that," said Vyachselav Bykov, Russia's coach.

"There were a couple of minutes in the second period where we lost the discipline, but I'm happy with the result," he added.

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ILYA KOVALCHUK – 400!

ILYA KOVALCHUK – 400!
Yesterday Ilya Kovalchuk netted his 400th goal in his professional career in his 50th match for the Russian national team.
Sport Express Daily May 12, 2010


New Jersey forward Ilya Kovalchuk played his jubilee 50th match for his national team yesterday and was voted the best player of the team in the World Championship game against Kazakhstan (4:1).

"I felt much better and the team demonstrated hockey of higher quality than in the previous match against Slovakia", Kovalchuk said. "We created a lot of scoring opportunities and played more reliable".

"It’s not so important who are your partners in the national team. Afinogenov and Kulemin are in excellent form, and I think they played very well".

"It’s great that Pavel Datsyuk is coming to Germany to join us, as it’s perfect reinforcement of our team. Pavel is one of the best centers in the world".

"Kazakhstan played well against us, and it was not an easy match for Russia. It became easier to play after we scored a goal on powerplay".

"I would have given award for the best player of the game to Alexandr Eremenko, who saved us many times. He is not to blame for conceded goal".

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Ilya, the captain

Ilya, the captain
The 'C' on his chest marks Kovalchuk a true leader
IHF May 11, 2010

He scored the game winner in the 2008 World Championship final in Quebec City, and in 2009, when Russia defended their title, he averaged most ice time on the team. Sounds like a player who’s got what it takes, right? The ability to deliver in a crunch situation and the willingness to work hard, and lead by example. Also, he seems to have earned the coach’s trust.

So when Alexei Morozov couldn’t make the World Championship due to an injury, it probably shouldn’t have been a surprise to see coach Vyacheslav Bykov name Ilya Kovalchuk the team captain.

It wasn’t one to his teammates.

“I wasn’t surprised, he’s one of our best players, our leader, and in the absence of Morozov, he was a natural choice,” says defenceman Denis Grebeshkov.

For Kovalchuk, wearing the ‘C’ on his chest wasn’t anything completely foreign, after all, he was the captain of the Atlanta Thrashers his last year with the team. He first served as one of five alternate captains until the alternates collectively requested to general manager Don Waddell and coach John Anderson for Kovalchuk to take over the captaincy.

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Russia Beats Slovakia In World Opener, Kovalchuk Named Captain

In the Crease
Associated Press May 10, 2010

World championships

Jaromir Jagr set up three goals to help the Czech Republic cruise past France, 6-2, in their opening game of the ice hockey world championships in Cologne, Germany.

Group C rival Sweden won a had-fought battle with Norway, 5-2.

In Group A, Belarus rallied from two goals down to beat Kazakstan, 5-2. Russia, led by its big guns - team captain Ilya Kovalchuk, Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin, and Maxim Afinogenov - beat Slovakia, 3-1.

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Ilya Kovalchuk & Russia takes aim at gold medal hat trick at Worlds

Russia takes aim at gold medal hat trick at Worlds
Foxnews.com May 7, 2010

During the recent LG Hockey Games (an annual World Championship preparation tournament in Stockholm and Helsinki), Bykov confirmed that two-time Hart Trophy winner Alex Ovechkin, 2009 World Championship MVP Ilya Kovalchuk, high-scoring Capitals forward Alexander Semin and promising young Capitals goaltender Semyon Varlamov all said they will answer to call to help the national team defend its World Championship gold medal. In addition, enigmatic Los Angeles Kings forward Alexander Frolov and Nashville Predators defenseman Denis Grebeshkov will join Team Russia for the start of the tournament.

In a recent interview with Sovetskiy Sport translated through Russianhockeyfans.com, Kovalchuk explained that he and other top Russian players already had discussed possible World Championship participation immediately after the Olympics, and pledged to one another that they would play in the tournament if possible. He also said he spoke with Ovechkin and Semin shortly after the Caps lost Game 7 to Montreal. Although Kovalchuk is an impending free agent, he said his contract status will not be a deterrent to playing in Germany.

"We must win and make this season end well," Kovalchuk said. "My wife Nicole understood me at once, told me that the whole family would be watching games on TV and cheer for us. She and the kids stayed in Miami. I spent a week there and flew to Russia."

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Kovalchuk Emphasizes Win Now For Russia

World Championship - Ilya Kovalchuk: "We need to win now like never before"
RussianHockeyFans.com May 4, 2010


RussianHockeyFans.com offers you a translation.

Many thought that you won't play for the national team. It is very risky as you don't have a contract for the next season in the NHL. Besides your wife gave a birth to your son in March. Was this decision hard to take?

Kovalchuk: "After failing in Vancouver all guys agreed to go to the World Championship if there is a chance. We must win and make this season end well.
My wife Nicole understood me at once, told me that the whole family would be watching games on TV and cheer for us. She and the kids stayed in Miami. I spent a week there and flew to Russia."

Many teams will have either weak or very young rosters. It will be easier for Team Russia to win the gold?
Kovalchuk: "In first place we have to think about our team. It doesn't matter against whom we will play. All teams will fight against Russia. Especially the young guys, who will want to show themselves. But our team is young too, we have Kulikov, Anisimov, Varlamov, Radulov, Ovechkin, Semin... They aren't old men, are they?"

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