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Interesting Kovy article


RunninWithTheDevil

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http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/nearly-requesting-trade-devils-ilya-kovalchuk-leads-jersey-215259574.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The criticism and public pressure came hand in hand; it affected Kovalchuk to the point where he almost requested a trade from the Devils. It was recently disclosed by Kovalchuk's own mother, Lyubov, that Ilya had those thoughts.

She spoke with Sovetsky Sport's Pavel Lysenkov and said, "it was difficult to work with that coach [John MacLean]. He didn't really let Ilya play…"

Ilya was taking it very hard. But I kept telling him 'You need to weather it, son. Prove everything on the ice.' And then there was such a time when he was ready to ask New Jersey for a trade. He didn't voice it loud, but that decision was becoming ripe. He told me on the phone: 'That's it. I am going to the general manager.' [And I said] 'What are you doing, wait! So much was done to get your contract with the Devils approved. And now you will quit?'"

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who cares now, you can see that he loves it here

Careers hit crossroads all of the time. Could you imagine if Ilya had actually asked Lou to trade him and it became public? He would have lost a LOT of support.

It almost hurts to see how poor of a coach MacLean was for this team...he was such a terrific player, and so important to the Devils' transition from perennial doormat to contender.

Easy to let all of this go considering how it's all worked out...but it's easy to see how Kovy could've crashed and burned before he ever really got started.

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If these last two years taught us anything, it's that John MacLean is the worst coach in the history of the NHL.

He was definitely the wrong guy for this group. I would be curious to see what he could do if he ever got another shot, but who knows if he ever gets one...that was one rough stint.

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If these last two years taught us anything, it's that John MacLean is the worst coach in the history of the NHL.

We knew that already after the second half last year when Lemaire basically turned it around 180 degrees in a month. I'm hard pressed to find a coach in ANY major professional sport that had a worse tenure than MacLean, given how good the team was before and after not to mention all the locker room issues.

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We knew that already after the second half last year when Lemaire basically turned it around 180 degrees in a month. I'm hard pressed to find a coach in ANY major professional sport that had a worse tenure than MacLean, given how good the team was before and after not to mention all the locker room issues.

Rich Kotite with the Jets.

Jerry Tarkanian with the Spurs.

Art Howe with the Mets was pretty God-awful too.

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Rich Kotite with the Jets.

Jerry Tarkanian with the Spurs.

Art Howe with the Mets was pretty God-awful too.

Rich Kotite, you got me with that one although I guess I've blocked out memories of those two years (other than using Vance Joseph to cover Tim Brown on national TV lol) since the Jets have been at least a decent team for the most part since Parcells. They went from 3-13, then 1-15 to 9-7 in one year, and should have been at least a borderline playoff team the year before Kotite got there until choking against the Dolphins under Carroll. Art Howe was bad, but the Mets were a bad team anyway. Honestly forgot about Tark with the Spurs, I was gonna say Tim Floyd but the Bulls were just god-awful post-Jordan anyway.

Edited by NJDevs4978
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Chesnokov (the writer) seems like a family friend, he got the 'in' on so many Kovy stories during the summer of madness.

This story isn't by Chesnokov, it's by Pavel Lysenkov of SovSport. In general, Eastern Europeans are much more forthright with the media when it comes to these things.

Kovalchuk wasn't getting traded anywhere, though, unless the Devils wanted to take on a horrible contract to get rid of him. Where would he have gone? It's not like teams were willing to offer him 15 years in the summer, besides LA, and they weren't willing to offer that kind of money.

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Mama Kovalchuk

Here is a video made about Kovy and what makes him tick, it features Mama Kovalchuk speaking about ........ who knows, i cant speak Russian!!

There is a translation on the full link.

Edited by Chimaira_Devil_#9
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Kovy could have been traded to the Islanders possibly if Kovy was willing to go through with it and that 10 year 100 million offer was legit.

Even if it was, a 15 year 100 million dollar deal is way worse than 10 years, 100 million dollars. The Islanders had the lowest actual payroll in the league - they used lots of players who had effectively unreachable bonuses to make it to the salary floor. The Kovalchuk deal, for a good portion of it, pays out several million dollars above the cap hit. That would be disastrous for the Isles.

Even now I don't know who would take on this deal if in theory it had to be traded.

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