Team better off without Kovalchuk?

[Bleedred]

Yeah, I think it's safe to say at this point that his lackadaisical nature on ice last season was simply due to effort. We were all wondering if he was injured, if he was worried about being healthy for the playoffs, but after all the talk about how his wife was worried about his back and how he simply wants to be in Russia with his family, I just don't think he felt like playing in the NHL was worth it anymore. Not for the money, not for the injuries, not for nothing.

I'm not sure. I always thought he was great for us the first couple years. He was always really good to our fans too from what I saw. Always real classy, I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt. I always had the other guy pegged as a phoney though.

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

I'm not sure. I always thought he was great for us the first couple years. He was always really good to our fans too from what I saw. Always real classy, I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt. I always had the other guy pegged as a phoney though.

Yeah that's what's so weird. He was clearly a good teammate. When you have Elias saying things like "this is the best group of guys I've ever played with" then I'm gonna be the last one to doubt the character of anyone on that team. I don't think Kovalchuk totally dogged it on the ice, but when you have that nagging voice in the back of your head (or back at home after the game), it can be harder to really throw yourself out there at 100%.

 

[DevilChuk*]

oh snap! really??! hmmm....thnx

Yea, the penalty is just a cap hit. Precisely, its the cap hit we saved overall by paying him over his annual cap hit spread out over some number of years.

It's not really a 'penalty' in so far as much as a mechanism to ensure that total cap hit = total salary at the end of the day.

 

[MountainGoat]

Voted No

try to spin it all you want but losing Kovy is devastating

obviously Long term this might be a blessing with his performance decreasing with age, but if I had to bet on one player that would be effective until he's 40 it would be Kovy, the guy is a freak of nature.

we have a decent roster right now and I think we'll make the playoffs but we have no 1st line players and no game breakers

 

[Bleedred]

Yeah that's what's so weird. He was clearly a good teammate. When you have Elias saying things like "this is the best group of guys I've ever played with" then I'm gonna be the last one to doubt the character of anyone on that team. I don't think Kovalchuk totally dogged it on the ice, but when you have that nagging voice in the back of your head (or back at home after the game), it can be harder to really throw yourself out there at 100%.

Don't get me wrong, the 2013 Kovalchuk wasn't bad by any means. He was a good player, a pretty good player at that. Just not the world class top 5 in the world player that we saw for the second half of 10-11, and all of 11-12. Or for most of his earlier career. And definitely not what we saw in the 2013 world championships.

That Kovalchuk pretty much carried that team the whole way. Scored clutch goals, had multi point games multiple times. Somehow he along with the rest of the team really died in that game vs the USA which caused Russia to not be able to compete for a medal. Other than that game, he probably should have been MVP of the tournament. I think he led scoring too, or at least before that last game he did.

 

[Balance]

What type of question is this? How can anyone reasonable say yes?

What an emotion topic. When you lose your best player it is worse for the team.

 

[apice3*]

Are we a better team without 17? Obviously not.

Will we be a better team this year? I think so.

 

[dougiebrown]

Step back one year, replace the name Kovalchuk with the name Parise, and you get the same response. And we were not a better team without Parise.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Don't get me wrong, the 2013 Kovalchuk wasn't bad by any means. He was a good player, a pretty good player at that. Just not the world class top 5 in the world player that we saw for the second half of 10-11, and all of 11-12. Or for most of his earlier career. And definitely not what we saw in the 2013 world championships.

That Kovalchuk pretty much carried that team the whole way. Scored clutch goals, had multi point games multiple times. Somehow he along with the rest of the team really died in that game vs the USA which caused Russia to not be able to compete for a medal. Other than that game, he probably should have been MVP of the tournament. I think he led scoring too, or at least before that last game he did.

That is why I think a big asterisk needs to be put on the short term part.

If we were going to get 2013 Kovy again that the loss isn't as devastating as it seems. Plus you can already argue that Lou has replaced that lost production already, or pretty close to it.

IF you were expecting 2012 Kovy then ya that is a massive short term hit.

Looking at it though it seems 2013 was what we were going to see, and considering what we would be paying him and the amount of minutes we would be playing him I think we would be better off.

 

[RSeen]

We get a 250K penalty since he retired this early. How high would it have been if it was 5 years down the road? I would think very significant. Better long term but short term it is very bad.

 

[Bleedred]

That is why I think a big asterisk needs to be put on the short term part.

If we were going to get 2013 Kovy again that the loss isn't as devastating as it seems. Plus you can already argue that Lou has replaced that lost production already, or pretty close to it.

IF you were expecting 2012 Kovy then ya that is a massive short term hit.

Looking at it though it seems 2013 was what we were going to see, and considering what we would be paying him and the amount of minutes we would be playing him I think we would be better off.

Yeah if he really wanted to go back, then I think we would have saw a similar one. One who kinda looks a little disinterested, or in our minds maybe injured, or not feeling 100%, or needs to be moved back to LW.

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

Elias has been this team's best player for at least five years, as far as I'm concerned. Who else could turn geezers like Rolston and Sykora and Zubrus into top-6 shutdown players night in and night out? Who else could lead the team in scoring as a 35 year-old through the worst opening half-season in team history? Who else stuck with the team through all the first round exits and losing the captaincy and 4 coaches in 4 years and Niedermayer leaving and Rafalski leaving and Gomez leaving and Gionta leaving and Parise leaving and Clarkson leaving? Elias 4eva.

 

[JimEIV]

I'm willing to bet the 2013-14 team will better than last year's team and the 2010-11 team.

Take that anyway you want it but my thought is when you have an incomplete player playing 26 minutes a night you have an incomplete team....furthermore when a player is playing that much time you create a dependency on that player.

But really the bottom line is scoring goals and preventing them from being scored on you....Kovalchuk was a negative in that regard mainly because his goal production was terrible while he was here...he only lead the team in scoring 1 out of 3 years he was here and that was while riding shotgun with Parise....the PP was dreadfully bad the entire time he was here playing the full 2 minutes...he would've scored less than 30 this year in a full season and he scored less than 30 in 2010-11....what was really lost? Slick moves and a 30 goal scorer who needed to play half the game to put up average points? Give me a break. He was a detriment to the team and we will see a much better New Jersey Devil team without him.

 

[JimEIV]

But don't listen to me....listen to Elias.

On whether he’s confident Devils can win without Kovalchuk:

“Yes. With the guys that we’ve got, the new guys, we’re going to have a more balanced team and I think we’ll be fine as a team and as an organization going forward."

 

[Balance]

The team went 1-10 without Kovalchuk last season

 

[glenwo2]

The team went 1-10 without Kovalchuk last season

Wasn't Marty injured at that time also?

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

Wasn't Marty injured at that time also?

I think Marty was injured either before or after that. But still, last years team without Kovy was a joke. No depth at all. This year's team without Kovy is competitive. If Kovy didn't leave and we made all the moves we made(and moved some salary) we'd be an elite team. We can be good without him, but probably not quite as good.

 

[Mgd31]

The team went 1-10 without Kovalchuk last season

Meh, should have won at least half those games during that stretch. Terrible puck luck during games of utter domination

 

[StvBroDan]

Can't have a pouting Russian on the ice for that kind of money. See Ya

 

[StvBroDan]

But don't listen to me....listen to Elias.

On whether he’s confident Devils can win without Kovalchuk:

“Yes. With the guys that we’ve got, the new guys, we’re going to have a more balanced team and I think we’ll be fine as a team and as an organization going forward."

Patty was like you Jim he never did like him.

 

[Balance]

I think Marty was injured either before or after that. But still, last years team without Kovy was a joke. No depth at all. This year's team without Kovy is competitive. If Kovy didn't leave and we made all the moves we made(and moved some salary) we'd be an elite team. We can be good without him, but probably not quite as good.

I do agree that this is a cup contender easily with Kovalchuk. This team is better than 2012.

I still think the team can make the playoffs, but I don't see a cup winner without a star forward.

 

[Balance]

Meh, should have won at least half those games during that stretch. Terrible puck luck during games of utter domination

I agree that they should have won more games but watching the games proved that it was so apparent that the team was much worse without him.

 

[Bleedred]

Wasn't Marty injured at that time also?

No he wasn't, but he was injured when we had another disastrous run. If you wanna talk about how bad we were without him, let's also talk about how bad we were with him when Marty was injured. We won 1 non shootout game when Marty was injured, and Kovalchuk was in the lineup the whole time. Kovalchuk also didn't score a goal in the 2 shootouts we won either.

Kovalchuk was pretty MIA during that span too if I recall. Two measely goals in the same game against Carolina, and one goal against the Flyers in a game we won with a huge scoring explosion.

 

[R8Devs]

The team went 1-10 without Kovalchuk last season

some bad luck went into those games....but obviously the team was worse off without their best player and they were unprepared but now they will be prepared for life without Kovy.


There were two games where they blew the game in the last minute and lost in overtime and last year we didn't have enough depth to replace Kovy... but now we have Ryder, Jagr, and Clowe instead of D'agostini and Sullivan.


Do I think we're better off without Kovy this year? No, but I do think we'll finish higher in the standings than last year because of depth.

 

[NjDevsRR]

some bad luck went into those games....but obviously the team was worse off without their best player and they were unprepared but now they will be prepared for life without Kovy.


There were two games where they blew the game in the last minute and lost in overtime and last year we didn't have enough depth to replace Kovy... but now we have Ryder, Jagr, and Clowe instead of D'agostini and Sullivan.


Do I think we're better off without Kovy this year? No, but I do think we'll finish higher in the standings than last year because of depth.

We also lost those 3 games where we gave up 11,13, and 16 shots.