Kudos to Kovalchuk

Yesterday, Ilya Kovalchuk, through his agent, issued the New Jersey Devils, and to a lesser extent, the NHL an ultimatum: Resolve your differences in 48 hours, or he will play elsewhere this year. For that, I have to tip my hat to the guy.

I’m sure the last few months have been particularly stressful on the superstar forward, as he hasn’t been able to take care of the personal side of his life because his destination is still in limbo. Yet at the same time, he has maintained his integrity throughout.

Sure many will say he’s asking for too much and doesn’t deserve it, but there are a few facts that get in the way of that. First of all, he’s only asking for what the market will bear. Evgeni Nabokov took his pads and went home because no one in the NHL was going to pay him 6 million dollars. However, several teams in the NHL were willing to meet Kovalchuk’s contract demands, so there must be some substance to that, right?

Additionally, the only player with more goals than Kovalchuk since the lockout is one Alex Ovechkin. The man with the richest contract ever given in the NHL. Kovalchuk could easily put up Ovechkin-type numbers if given the same linemates. Let’s forget about any talk of him asking for too much. Most of us non-millionaires will automatically get irked when they hear about something like this, but everyone else gets paid market rates for their jobs, so why not hockey players?

Kovalchuk has acted professionally throughout this entire debate. He made it clear to Atlanta that he was not going to remain with the club, as he’d already given them a home team discount with his previous contract and they had yet to build a team around him. He had also watched Heatley, Hossa and Savard depart Atlanta for greener pastures before him.

Following his trade to the Devils he played amicably, as a point-per-game player in the remaining 27 games of the regular season and in the Devils’ 5 game first round exit, he was their best player, posting 2 goals, 4 assists for 6 points and an even plus/minus. The Devils rebuilt aggressively in the offseason, adding Anton Volchenkov and Henrik Tallinder, furthering their commitment to winning.

Even with LA dangling a similar deal, Kovalchuk ultimately remained loyal to the club that gave up assets to acquire him, signing a 17 year, $102 million dollar deal that was quickly quashed by the NHL in an act of hypocrisy and backtracking. The NHLPA filed a grievance and the arbitrator eventually ruled in favour of the NHL, who tried to save face by ‘investigating’ other front-loaded league contracts, which so far has done little to nothing other than trying to get the public to forget about it.

At this point, Kovalchuk was once again a free agent, and could have easily hopped on a plane to LA and inked a deal with Dean Lombardi, but Kovalchuk is a man of his word and he has remained in negotiations with Lou Lamoreillo through this whole process. However, at this stage it seems less and less likely that Lou and the league will be able to work out a proper arrangement without Lou having to move significant pieces off his current roster.

You have to feel sorry for Lou in this case, as I’m sure Kovalchuk does as well. He’s been tasked with keeping Kovalchuk in the fold, as Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek wants Kovalchuk as a marquee name to sell tickets once Martin Brodeur hangs them up. However, Lou also needs to field a competitive team now, and he knows that they are going to have to open up the pocketbook at the end of next season when All-Star winger Zach Parise becomes a restricted free agent.

Kovalchuk’s patience seems to have worn thin, as he has no desire to be the NHL’s whipping boy for front-loaded contracts and is ultimately caught up in a larger battle between the NHL owners and the NHLPA. Lou’s initial contract did go one step further than the Marian Hossa to Chicago deal, but ultimately one cannot be considered any more of a violation than another. It’s either against the CBA or it isn’t, and with that precedent, as well as the contracts of Roberto Luongo, Johan Franzen, Henrik Zetterberg and Chris Pronger to look at as well, it’s just an indicator of the type of people who are running this league that it was allowed to get this far in the first place.

I sincerely hope that a contract can be inked within the next 48 hours, as it would be yet another stain on the game’s reputation if it manages to force out one of its own stars due to petty infighting between the union and the owners. As for Kovalchuk, don’t blame him, he just wants to do what he does best and get paid handsomely for doing so, which is a sentiment we can all relate to.

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