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The "Now That We've Had Time To Digest This Thread"


Colorado Rockies 1976

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Clearly, as far as dark days in the Devils franchise go, Kovy "retiring" ranks waaaaaay the hell up there.  Goes without saying...and even worse, as fans it was damned near impossible to see this coming.  We were all blindsided today, and as expected, we all experienced a lot of emotions and feelings, and pretty much all of them were negative.

 

I am disappointed, but now that the shock is over, I can't say that I am angry with Kovy necessarily.  Don't get me wrong, as far as CR1976 the Devils fan goes, the fvcker's dead to me forever, but the human being in me sees it this way:

 

He's not American.  He's Russian.  Clearly Russia feels right to him in a way America never did. 

 

It's easy to say, "Well, if he had any doubts about staying here, he shouldn't have signed that deal."  He signed it in 2010.  It's now 2013.  A lot can happen in three years.  People can change.  What seemed like a great idea in 2010 can feel like a lousy one a few years later.  Since Kovy clearly had a change of heart and no longer wanted to be a part of this franchise, it's a good thing that the Devils are no longer on the hook for paying him $77 million.  Yes, it's going to hurt in the short term, but Kovy's contract was a bad one the minute it was signed.  I can't imagine he could've held up continuing to carry the workload that was being asked of him.  His deal was going to be a rough one in time (same as Parise's).  With this contract null and void, new opportunities WILL present themselves, but I'm not going to pretend that the Devils became a better team today.   

 

So in short, I can't bring myself to hate Kovy.

 

But I can hate the NHL right now.  Because today showed that the brand has been cheapened, and the NHL has no else to blame but themselves for this.  They've taken the brand for granted for too long, and because of their arrogance (thank you Gary Bettman), they allowed another game to ride into their turf and become a competitor for the world's best players' services.  This is such a sad joke.  The NHL is supposed to be the best league in the world, the league where the top players from all-around want to compete for the right to hoist hockey's ultimate trophy. That's supposed to be a fvcking NO BRAINER!  Remember, it wasn't so long ago that Russians were yearning, screaming, begging for the chance to play in the NHL...not the opportunity to go BACK! 

 

With Kovy's defection, to me, everything about the NHL took a hit today.  The league, how it's perceived, the Cup...somehow all of it seems a little less significant, a little less important, and the NHL is not a league that can afford to take hits to its credibility like this.  One of its best players willingly turned his back on what is allegedly THE friggin' PREMIER hockey league of the world.  I'm still amazed that this could even happen, regardless of the circumstances.   

 

Anywhere, just curious where others who are somewhat breathing normally again are. 

Edited by Colorado Rockies 1976
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I am not as forgiving as you are right now.  If he was a free agent sure, I would have no thoughts approaching hate just disappointment.  However, he signed a contract that cost this franchise dearly and now he is walking away from it for his own benefit.  His integrity took a big hit.

 

As to the rest of your post, I hadn't thought about it the way you did but I agree with your statement about the NHL.  Thanks for opening my eyes to that aspect.  

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The argument, and you won't like it and neither will anyone here, is that if the NHL were run the way it 'should' be, the way you're suggesting, the Devils wouldn't've had a chance to get Kovalchuk or sign him in the first place.  So it's a bit of a catch-22 - the only reason NJ could be that team is because of the salary cap and the way that revenues are shared in the NHL.  

 

I'm just glad of the 3 years I got to watch him and now no longer have to dread the next 6+ as his game continues to disintegrate.  No real hard feelings.

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Well put.  This is where I am, as well.  I don't hate the dude.  Bettman and co. have stuck it to the players for a lot of years.  And Kovy just said fvck this sh!t I don't have to deal with it anymore.  He did what a lot of us have done with our jobs.  He picked up and left because he couldn't take it any more.  Not so much the Devils but the the hierarchy that is the Dark Side of the league.  I sure hope the Bettman sucks chant takes on a new territory at the Rock moving forward because this is all because of them.

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The argument, and you won't like it and neither will anyone here, is that if the NHL were run the way it 'should' be, the way you're suggesting, the Devils wouldn't've had a chance to get Kovalchuk or sign him in the first place.  So it's a bit of a catch-22 - the only reason NJ could be that team is because of the salary cap and the way that revenues are shared in the NHL.  

 

I'm just glad of the 3 years I got to watch him and now no longer have to dread the next 6+ as his game continues to disintegrate.  No real hard feelings.

 

Agreed. This shouldn't be overlooked. Kovy just recovered from a season book ended by a back and shoulder injury.

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The argument, and you won't like it and neither will anyone here, is that if the NHL were run the way it 'should' be, the way you're suggesting, the Devils wouldn't've had a chance to get Kovalchuk or sign him in the first place.  So it's a bit of a catch-22 - the only reason NJ could be that team is because of the salary cap and the way that revenues are shared in the NHL.  

 

I'm just glad of the 3 years I got to watch him and now no longer have to dread the next 6+ as his game continues to disintegrate.  No real hard feelings.

 

That's actually something I can agree with.  Call me crazy, but I actually think 3 years from now, we'll be in a pretty good position with quite a bit in cap space and some opportunities to  be creative.

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I actually was not surprised. When I saw him play for the KHL this past Spring and saw him having fun scoring goals and skipping on the getting hit and the not having to play D... I thought to myself, this guy is either nuts or really wants a shot at the Cup...

 

In my mind he was passing up $5M per year to have to be subjected to the play in the NHL

 

We got the 3 best years, saved a ton of money and it would hurt in another 2 or 3 when he's a 25 goals scorer....

 

No hard feelings... he actually did us a favor.

 

I am still pissed at the league over the penalty, but that's life.

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In two years this will be a good move for the Devils, Kovy was already breaking down, falling on the ice into the boards twice, herniated disc cropping up intermittantly, missing the net more on the snipe. and not as explosive as he was three years ago.  still a very good player yeah, but there are better now, quite a few.  its kind of a relief as much as a downer now.  and we no longer need to worry about finding linemates to work with him LOL

 

as far a a hit to the NHL, lets wait two years and see who has more remorse about the move, kovy or the NHL

 

BTW CR76 is your quotation mark in the wrong place in the title?

Edited by EdgeControl
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i think, if you simply look at it like a career ending injury where the devils don't have to pay any $, you feel better about it. that's how i'm looking at it. it hurts the marquee value of the club as he was the "face" of the team to a lot of new fans. that's going to hurt for a bit.

 

look, lou could sign brunner to a 3/9 contract and he could come in and put up 25-30-55, with 18 goals at even strength and be a really nice player. but there's no chance he's gonna put up 70+ points. there's a pretty good chance kovy was going to do that for the next 3 years at least. that's going to be hard to replace.

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I actually was not surprised. When I saw him play for the KHL this past Spring and saw him having fun scoring goals and skipping on the getting hit and the not having to play D... I thought to myself, this guy is either nuts or really wants a shot at the Cup...

 

In my mind he was passing up $5M per year to have to be subjected to the play in the NHL

 

We got the 3 best years, saved a ton of money and it would hurt in another 2 or 3 when he's a 25 goals scorer....

 

No hard feelings... he actually did us a favor.

 

I am still pissed at the league over the penalty, but that's life.

 

I think I recall someone on here mentioning that Kovy didn't look too excited when he scored this season. Now we know why.

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I actually was not surprised. When I saw him play for the KHL this past Spring and saw him having fun scoring goals and skipping on the getting hit and the not having to play D... I thought to myself, this guy is either nuts or really wants a shot at the Cup...

 

In my mind he was passing up $5M per year to have to be subjected to the play in the NHL

 

We got the 3 best years, saved a ton of money and it would hurt in another 2 or 3 when he's a 25 goals scorer....

 

No hard feelings... he actually did us a favor.

 

I am still pissed at the league over the penalty, but that's life.

 

I think we all pretty much agree that the last half of this contract (possibly even sooner) had trainwreck written all over it. 

 

Short term:  hurts, just because

Long term:  Devils got a lousy contract off their books. 

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Also I've convinced myself this penalty will be removed.

Because believe me: if it isn't, I won't spend another penny on this second rate joke of a league.

 

I doubt it will because it's a penalty for cap circumvention. It didn't have anything to do with the details of the contract. The Devils could take it to court though and make a case.

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This doesn't have anything to do with what Bettman or the NHL could or should have done. The other three US sports have the luxury that no other relatively wealthy nation has the desire or means to create a league that can compete with MLB, the NBA or NFL. Hockey is an international sport that isn't uniquely North American in the way basketball, baseball or American football are.

Ultimately, the KHL owners have money, but, collectively, not THAT much money. Maybe the league as a whole can afford to throw $15 to $20 million per year at a handful of players. But the teams themselves cannot bring in as much revenue as even a middle of the pack NHL team, at least for the foreseeable future. You can only spend so much on a toy and for the sake of vanity.

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ive gone from feeling extremely angry.. to truely heart broken.. it may sounds ridiculous especially to my girl friend lol... but if anyone understand where im coming from which i know is all of you other die hards on here... i feel fvcked over and really really heart broken.. truly sucks in so many ways some of us get attached to seeing some of these players and the great moments weve gotten to share by being fans with them and then sh!t like this happen and its not fair and we as fans have had to go threw this too many times in the past year.. zach... most recently it was david clarkson(im not comparing their skills) i friggin loved clarky went out and bought one of his game worn jerseys was all excited to wear it this season even bought one of his game used sticks.. and he up and leaves to go home which left me feeling heart broken for a couple days and we signed some other decent players and i got over it... but this. man this really hits home completely took everyone by such surprise and the fact that the entire team was basically built around this guy .. the penalties and sh!t the troubles that this team went threw to sign him he cannot be replaced its physically impossible.. and he stood up walked out the door and deserted us after everything that was done for his contract.. like a father walking out on his wife and kids he completely left us high and dry knowing what he meant to the team and didnt look back just took off.. selfish prick... fvcking heart broken and sick of getting attached to great players then having them sh!t on our faces.

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Posted this on the "news" thread....but I think it goes better here......

The fact that we didn't know, doesn't mean management didn't know about this.

 

This offseason we traded for one of the top goalies on the league and signed a couple of the best available free agents. This is what made you feel so optimistic, but these very same unusual (for us) signings and trades are (to me) a sign that LL knew what Kovalchuk would do long ago. Also, you have to think that at least Ryder ended up coming here partly because of #17. In Schneider's case...guess what, in 2 years you just became the face of the franchise.

 

He also announced it just as our cap space was small and with Henrique and Josefson still un-extended.

 

It's not his fault we lose next year's pick. First it'd be Bettman's fault for imposing that penalty in the first place, then also Lou's fault for not giving up that 29th pick.

 

It's also not his fault Parise didn't sign here. We had the cap space, the team, and the run to the Cup; he simply wanted to go play in his hometown with his boyfriend.

 

This absolutely sucks, and I understand that many feel betrayed, but I do think this was known by management before the season, before free agency...
 

I'm going to go Moneyball here and say you can't straight up replace Kovalchuk and his minutes and production, but you can build a winning team with the right pieces. This definitively got my mood down, but I'm not ready to say this is franchise ending as some have said. Let's see what happens in the next week...better yet, let's see what happens on the ice.

 

We can't go crazy and really give everything to get Vanek or something like that. PDB should know what he needs to make it happen. We won 3 Cups without a 50 goal scorer and Kovalchuk won 0 while scoring 50 goals.

 

If we add a couple guys that are improvements over what we currently have we'll be ok (and now we have the cap space to do so). We have better goaltending, Clowe is an improvement over Clarkson (imo), we can extend Henrique and hopefully he'll bounce back from his sophomore wall, Ryder will do his thing....

 

Just not ready to write this season off yet.

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i think, if you simply look at it like a career ending injury where the devils don't have to pay any $, you feel better about it. that's how i'm looking at it. it hurts the marquee value of the club as he was the "face" of the team to a lot of new fans. that's going to hurt for a bit.

 

look, lou could sign brunner to a 3/9 contract and he could come in and put up 25-30-55, with 18 goals at even strength and be a really nice player. but there's no chance he's gonna put up 70+ points. there's a pretty good chance kovy was going to do that for the next 3 years at least. that's going to be hard to replace.

 

Kovalchuk's value, besides his stellar 4 on 5 work, seems to be mostly that he was taking ice time from worse players.  That's about it - the ability to take ice time away from players worse than him, both on the power play and at even strength.  I think he was good not great on the power play, but I don't put much ability in myself to evaluate guys on the power play from a numbers perspective.  From an eye-test perspective his decision-making and positioning was less than ideal, but he was occasionally a wizard and that slapshot is second-to-none.

 

Basically I don't think it's that valuable to have a forward putting up 70+ points if he's taking 25 minutes to do it.  If Brunner or someone else can put up similar rates while only playing 16 minutes of ice time, the Devils are not losing all that much - they have the depth this year to not have to rely on a 25 minute a game Kovalchuk.

Edited by Triumph
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It hurts because we spent a lot of treasure for the three years we got out of him. And that's without entertaining the idea that Parise would be on the Devils for a reasonable price had they not been distracted with Kovy in 2010, or pushed the envelope further so far as contract monkey business.

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Getting out from under Kovy's contract will ultimately be a blessing in disguise, provided that money and space is re-allocated in a wiser and more prudent fashion over the next few offseasons.

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Yeah yeah yeah it's a blessing

Truth is, this team is now without a star player, and, while it sounds lame, the honest truth is that stars put butts in the seats.

I'm truly dreading seeing 12k people in the arena during a Thursday night game in December if the team gets off to a predictably slow start.

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Great thread and post CR, well done. Let me set the scene: I was on the golf course when I got this news, so I haven't really had the time to properly sit down and give my thoughts until now. When I was on the 5th hole of the afternoon getting ready to select a club for my approach shot, my good friend (some of you may know him as Sickman in these parts) texted me the following: 'DUDE, WTF?!' I figured we made a trade or something. Then, before I can even check the boards, my mom texts me: 'KOVY IS RETIRING'. Needless to say, the next 5 or so shots I hit while turning this news over in my head were awful. I was pretty shocked and angry. Being a Dolphins fan, I immediately had Ricky Williams flashbacks. Obviously Kovy didnt go back to Russia to smoke weed in a tent, so its a little different. But the impact on the Devils is similar to the way Ricky's 'retirement' impacted the Dolphins back in 2004 in the way that the best offensive player on the team up and peaced without any notice whatsoever. Its tough to take in the short term. But in the long run, we may be better off. I just hope Lou can do something to fill that hole. This is a team that could do some good things this year, and I believe still can if Lou can make a move for the right guy. Who is that guy? I don't know. Vanek? Maybe sign Brunner and Jagr? I don't know what Lou has in mind. That's why I'm me and Lou is Lou. Thankfully there are still 3 months until the season starts. And thankfully for me, Lou is in charge of the Devils and not Rick Speilman and Dave Wannstedt (who, for those who don't know, were the dipsh!ts running the Dolphins in 2004).

Edited by MadDog2020
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This is why I love Elias so much. Blah Blah, the cap his is gone, blah blah. I believe Lou when he said that there is no positives that come out of today. This is just another kick in the balls to NJ by its "faithful" players. I do have faith that Lou can do something or will at least try his best.

Edited by NJDevils1214
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The argument, and you won't like it and neither will anyone here, is that if the NHL were run the way it 'should' be, the way you're suggesting, the Devils wouldn't've had a chance to get Kovalchuk or sign him in the first place.  So it's a bit of a catch-22 - the only reason NJ could be that team is because of the salary cap and the way that revenues are shared in the NHL.  

 

I'm just glad of the 3 years I got to watch him and now no longer have to dread the next 6+ as his game continues to disintegrate.  No real hard feelings.

If Lou helped facilitate this move it is a massive coupe for the Devils moving forward. Kovalchuk needs seasons like he had in 2011-12 to be worth his contract. I think his game is going drastically down hill and fast.

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