Just when The Summer of Ilya (Kovalchuk) was beginning to look like The Summer of George (Costanza), reports exploded late Friday night that the Islanders not only had joined the bidding for the free-agent winger, but were offering the exact $100 million commitment the New Jersey rental has been seeking.
Hmm. How very convenient. How very suspicious.
Look, maybe it’s all legit. Maybe after two days of zeroing in on Type C free agents Mark Eaton, Milan Jurcina, P.A. Parenteau and Zenon Konopka, GM Garth Snow turned to team chairman Charles Wang and on a whim suggested they offer a fortune to Kovalchuk since nobody else was willing to come close to the winger’s asking price.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe the Islanders moved from the $1 slots to the VIP Baccarat Lounge. Maybe they are in this for real. Maybe there is a serious negotiation at hand even though Kovalchuk’s objective going into free agency was to sign with a glamour/big-market team with a chance to win the Cup. Of course, his objective was to maximize his income, so maybe the opportunity to cash in has trumped all other considerations.
There is this, too: Kovalchuk is represented by Jay Grossman, one of the most circumspect agents in the business, an individual who never has been comfortable seeing numbers and speculation splashed around in the press. Two days of news blackouts for all intents and purposes, followed by this?
Again. Maybe it’s real. Maybe this is more than an attempt to get free publicity. Maybe this is more than a fleeting attempt to create good will among the battered fan base. Maybe the Islanders will spend twice as much as anyone else seems to be offering this explosive goal-scoring machine because that’s what they have to do in order to get a Type A (or is that Type Eh?) to come to the Island and become the new face of the Lighthouse movement.
If so, good for Wang, good for Snow, good for the Islanders. Kovalchuk isn’t for everyone, but he most certainly was not the cause of the Devils’ first-round demise, not even close.
Fact is that Kovalchuk’s dynamic Game 2 represented the best single performance of New Jersey’s out-with-a-whimper debacle against the Flyers. If Jacques Lemaire, who quickly fled the scene of the accident, hadn’t chosen to publicly spay Kovalchuk following that match, things might even have been different.
It would be different if this is all for real and not for show. It would be different if Kovalchuk goes to the Island, where he’s likely to be Lost even while commanding the spotlight. Very different.
Maybe it’s real.
Glen Sather‘s decision to bypass 34-year-old Jody Shelley in order to buy protection from 28-year-old Derek Boogaard was based almost exclusively on the players’ respective ages.
“I think Jody is a great guy who did a terrific job for us, but I just think this league and that role is too difficult to keep doing it at that age, and certainly for another two years, never mind three,” the GM told Slap Shots. “I go back to Dave Semenko, who I think was the best ever at it, and he couldn’t do it.
“I just think that’s a job that needs to be filled by a younger man. And I think we got the toughest one out there. I’m never going to say anything bad about Jody, but I like Derek; I like the guy we got.”
Semenko, of course, rode shotgun for The Great Gretzky during the Oilers’ first two Cup runs in 1984 and 1985 but essentially was finished by the time he was 30. Then again, it was a much tougher league — not a better one — back in the bad, old days.
Boogaard’s four-year, $6.6 million contract seems wildly excessive and will challenge coach John Tortorella‘s familiar assertion that paychecks don’t influence lineup decisions. It is a fact, however, that Edmonton actually offered Boogaard — who is going to Russia this summer to train with Pavel Datsyuk –$7 million over four years.
Not that the Oilers ever make a mistake, mind you.
Talk about patchwork, knee-jerk operations, and you’re talking about the Senators, who gave Sergei Gonchar a three-year, $16.55M over-35 deal they will live to regret.
Ottawa was the operation that did it all the “right way,” that people suggest exists. The Senators had a series of low first-round picks they turned into building blocks. But then came the cap that owner Eugene Melnyk lobbied for so militantly, there went Zdeno Chara, and now it’s an organization that makes personnel decisions based as much on the structure of their players’ signing bonuses as anything else.
You know what the “right way” is in this league? Any way that gets you to the Stanley Cup.
The Penguins did well in shoring up the back line, but don’t Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin need, you know, linemates?
Someone is going to get a winner in Billy Guerin, and at a very reasonable price. We’re told that Crosby, who at first acted as an enthusiastic pupil, became convinced along the way that he no longer needed the veteran winger’s guidance.
Tampa Bay’s Steve Yzerman paid a price to ensure that Martin St. Louis will remain a Lightning for life, $22.5 million for a four-year extension that kicks in for 2011-12 that marks the biggest contract ever awarded to an over-35. But this is a worthy commitment to the greatest player in franchise history, a sure-shot Hall of Famer who never wanted to leave but who sure would have looked great on Broadway had he been forced to go.
Finally, changing times in the NHL:
Punch Line, circa 1945: Elmer Lach, Toe Blake, Rocket Richard.
Punch line, circa 2010: Darryl Sutter, Olli Jokinen.