Stuck on a train for a few more hours so I’m about to start blogging like a mad man. Last night we got a cascade of reports that the Atlanta Thrashers are set to trade star winger Ilya Kovalchuk. The 26-year-old is a free agent at the end of this season and has reportedly rejected a huge contract offer from Atlanta. So that means general manager Don Waddell has to get what he can – and from what we’re hearing it could come before the Olympic break.
Conventional wisdom is that this will cripple the Thrashers in Atlanta. I’m not so sure. What exactly have they done with Kovalchuk – admitedly a great player who has scored 328 goals over the last eight years? He’s one of the sport’s elite snipers. He will play a key role for Russia in next month’s Olympics. But in no way is his presence packing Philips Arena. Every time Caps beat writers Tarik El Bashir (Washington Post) and Corey Masisak (late of the Washington Times) went down to the ATL they inevitably tweeted pictures of horrendous crowds just minutes before the puck dropped.
My point: How can you kill something that is already dead? To me, the Thrashers are in a good position. Kovalchuk is so talented he should bring more than your average NHL deadline rental. I know Waddell is asking for the moon, but he’s also trying to weed out the truly desperate from the kind-of interested. A young stud, one underrated roster player (a No. 4 defenseman, a solid third-line winger etc.) and a first-round pick seems reasonable to me.
Remember, the Thrashers are well positioned to rebuild relatively quickly. Their roster is stacked with young talent already. Defenseman Zach Bogosian, 19, looks like a future star and has a young running mate in Tobias Enstrom, 25. Forward Evander Kane, 18, has had a promising rookie season after being chosen fourth overall in last summer’s NHL draft. Forward Bryan Little is 22 and already has a 31-goal season under his belt – though he has struggled this year. And goalie Ondrej Pavelec, 22, has unseated the oft-injured Kari Lehtonen as the goalie of the future – though he, too, is experiencing growing pains. Add in a pair of nice veterans in Rich Peverley, 27, – a likely 20-goal scorer – and defenseman Rob Hainsey, 28, – a possible late addition to the United States Olympic team – and you can see where I’m going. Get an elite young prospect and a quality veteran for Kovalchuk – plus a first-round draft pick and Atlanta’s own likely high pick in this coming draft – and you have a blueprint reasonably close to what the Caps followed earlier this decade.
Hockey will never take off in Atlanta until they not only win games, but do so with homegrown players who all hit their prime at about the same time. Fans feel an investment when that happens and a team drawing an announced 13,067 fans per game – and surely much worse than that – can start to bring folks into the building and sell the sport. They have to get lucky, too. Kane developing into a marketable star would help. Kovalchuk has aways seemed a little too much like our own Peter Bondra – a great player from another country who could walk down the street in his own city and not draw a second glance. They’d also have to hit on those extra draft picks and hope their ownership situation stabilizes for the first time in forever. That’s still a lot to ask. But it’s a better plan than what they have now. What are the fans going to do if Kovalchuk is traded? Not show up?
