Jump to content

The Kovy Conundrum


Z-Man

Recommended Posts

The Devils have to stop trying to turn this guy into something that he is not. He needs to be on the left side in all situations and they need to pair him with a playmaker. (Elias) He is our current edition of Almo. He needs to concentrate on getting in the clear for quality shots on goal and his playmaker needs to get him the puck in the clear. Ala what Gomez did for Mogilny. We don't have a Gomez any more and Elias is our closest thing. Kovy on the point on the PP is just plain dumb. The Devils problem is they have no one else to do it. Larrson just simply isn't ready yet.

I don't recall Elias & Kovy having instant chemistry when they've played together in the past but it's definitely worth another shot if need be. Getting Kovy going and scoring often is far more important than keeping the Sykora-Elias-Zubrus line intact, especially since they've cooled off. Once Zajac comes back I'm hoping DeBoer tinkers a bit more, we have the personnel to have some pretty good scoring depth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i still dont know why Kovy has never been paired up with sykora. he had really good chemistry with malkin in pittsburgh, maybe it would click with them too. also then kovy can move back to the left since sykora is a rw

Id like to see this for a few shifts . have kovy skate it in to colapse the D and have sykora circle to the middle for a rip. two snipers on the same shift

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We need centers. We expected the offense to sputter when Zajac went down. We knew it would when Yayo followed him. We got lucky with Henrique, but we still have very little depth down the middle, and Kovy's best with a good distributor (read: center) passing it to him. He played his best hockey as a Devil with Zajac. Put them together and see what happens. If that doesn't work, then we have a problem. His d has improved. It's not there yet (turnovers), but we knew that was a work in progress and it's actually gone well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kovalchuk may be piling up the minuses, but I think he's playing some of his best hockey as a Devil right now. The guy I saw tonight is the guy that the Devils paid all that money for.

He's been OK of late. He's getting chances. But he seems to have that knack of making the mistake that ends up behind our goalie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kovalchuk may be piling up the minuses, but I think he's playing some of his best hockey as a Devil right now. The guy I saw tonight is the guy that the Devils paid all that money for.

lol whatever. Tonight was certainly progress but I doubt a mere secondary assist is what the Devils were hoping for considering all the chances Kovy got. He was all over the ice I'll grant you, one of his better efforts but it's kinda sad that people think that's enough for what we gave up and paid for him.

Edited by NJDevs4978
Link to comment
Share on other sites

lol whatever. Tonight was certainly progress but I doubt a mere secondary assist is what the Devils were hoping for considering all the chances Kovy got. He was all over the ice I'll grant you, one of his better efforts but it's kinda sad that people think that's enough for what we gave up and paid for him.

If he plays like this every night, you'll see 2 and 3 point games on the regular. The idea that this 'isn't enough' is ridiculous - he set up a ton of scoring chances tonight.

Edited by Triumph
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If he plays like this every night, you'll see 2 and 3 point games on the regular. The idea that this 'isn't enough' is ridiculous - he set up a ton of scoring chances tonight.

Yeah how many points does his line have in the last 4 or so games? They showed a graphic on it during the game.. To say he isn't doing enough is only because your expectations for him are unreasonable

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kovalchulk is a great player. Any of the other 29 teams would glady take him.

Enough said.

If that's the case then why did only 'one' other NHL team make a lowball offer to him when he was UFA two years ago? And the Thrashers tried to re-sign him, so basically three NHL teams made him an offer...compared to the seventeen or eighteen that made Brian Rolston an offer when he was a UFA lol.

Edited by NJDevs4978
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lots of laughs in this thread along with the usual :blahblah:

I look forward to having this debate with you regulars for the next 15 years. Because that contract is going nowhere. So if you people feel like bitching about it until 2026, be my guest.

Kovy's here to stay folks. He's a supreme offensive talent whose prone to turnovers. Take the good with the bad.

Edited by Devilsfan118
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Salary Cap :D

The same salary cap that we're supposedly catching a break on by getting Kovy for 'cheap' at $6.66 million per and two high draft picks?

I look forward to having this debate with you regulars for the next 15 years. Because that contract is going nowhere. So if you people feel like bitching about it until 2026, be my guest.

Well it's going somewhere by 2021 more likely, since he's not playing those last five years with three $1 million seasons if he can get a pretty penny to finish his career at home.

Edited by NJDevs4978
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Kovy didn't sign with us, and instead signed to a team who had a clue how to utilise his assets, you would be calling for Lou's head as Kovy racked up the points.

Of course, right now, the team is playing terrible, and the lines make no sense, nor does the strategy of the Power Play. Our star forward for the next decade+ is on the wrong side of the ice, and is playing a different game then the one that earned him the big contract. Tell me how that makes sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If Kovy didn't sign with us, and instead signed to a team who had a clue how to utilise his assets, you would be calling for Lou's head as Kovy racked up the points.

We basically had the chance to try Kovy out in 09-10. He didn't make a difference in our offense then. A smart front office would have looked at Kovy during the off season and realized that Kovy wasn't the piece to the puzzle. That season we limped into the playoffs and almost got swept by the Flyers. The front office should have seen that and let him walk. So while I'm sure some of us would have been woulda coulda shoulda we would have gotten over it. We lost Gomer, Nieds, Rafalski, Holik etc. Sure we were disappointed but we moved forward and succeeded. We still played a team game and realized the parts weren't more than the whole. Look at the 07-08 club. Aron Asham, Karel Rachunek? We still managed to make the playoffs. Signing Kovy was the first sign that there was no sense of team effort anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well Lemaire was basically pushed into retirement and Langs was asked to waive his no-trade before the '10-11 season and refused, so actually there wasn't much more that could have been done to 'address' that :P

I get that, but Adam is saying that us not signing Kovalchuk would have been received harshly. I recall us being in a scoring slump and that's what got us into the Kovy trade. It didn't help and those Langenbrunner issues weren't addressed until the foloowing season so they were put on the backburner and instead we went after an offensive dynamo that didn't pan out.

Since then it's all been plugging holes here and there at first due to the Kovy cap situation to signing players who don't really add much a la Janssen and Boulton.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.