12 Days of Kovalchuk: Day 1, He's the NHL's Leading Goal Scorer
'Tis the season for All-Star voting and what better way to celebrate that borrowing a gimmick from that old Christmas classic. As hockey lovers in the south we are quite accustom to being treated like the red-headed stepchild of the league. Atlanta players aren't featured in any of the commercials promoting the NHL. None of our players are honored with their own NHL Player Website. We are only shown on nationally aired games if we happen to be playing the Crosby Kids. So I'm really not surprised that the best individual player of this season is only in 6th place in All-Star Voting. After all, outside of the SED no one is really sure the Thrashers exist.
But here at Shootout we have a platform to inundate you with reminders. To implore upon our fans, and even the fans of our enemies, to cast a vote for Ilya Kovalchuk. Consider this the first of 12 reminders. We start with the most basic reason of all--his league leading 23 goals.
9 brilliant comment(s):
I simply think the reluctance/apathy to vote for Eel-ya is simply because he's Russian...Had it been a North American (if Dany Heatley had driven within the speed limit that awful September night), he'd be more embraced...
I don't buy that. Ovechkin is doing better than Kovy even though his season isn't better. I credit that to both the Internet-Savvy of Caps fans and the fact that the NHL markets Ovechkin fairly well.
I don't think this is anti-Russian discrimination, but I do think he suffers from some Canadian favoritism that his competitors are getting. I don't know if you've seen the hype throughout the Northwest conference over Crosby's visit... It's hard to fault national pride, but it means that the rest of us need to work harder to provide balance.
I tried, but the best I could do was vote Lecavalier -St Louis -and a write-in vote for (you guessed it) Lecavalier.
Look, I'm not proud of this...
The latest vote totals (released today) have Kovy in 5th among Eastern forwards. He is about 36,000 votes out of the starting line-up. This is completely doable people.
Vote already.
Hmm...I don't know about this one. I agree that Kovalchuk deserves to get more recognition for the things he's done, and yes, his point totals so far this season are very good. Better season than Ovechkin though? Nope. At the very least I'd say they're having equally impressive seasons.
Kovy may have the goals and assists lead on Ovechkin, but Ovie's got the advantage everywhere else and has really found another level to his game - meanwhile it took Kovalchuk about a month to find his game at all...
I think I should kick off a "Vote for Ovechkin" campaign, since somehow Kovy jumped over him in the voting. Come on Caps fans!! :P
(Let's face it, neither of them should be trailing Daniel "the magical spearing midget" Briere in the voting...)
The platform is yours. Feel free to start a counter argument...but I think you are underestimating the power of Kovy. By the end of 12 days you too shall be convinced.
Kovy is a dazzling individual player, but doesn't do nearly as much for his team as does Vinny Lecavalier. Kovy's still got some work to do to be a complete player, but I'm cool with him being in the All Star game. As long as he doesn't show up in that kilt . . . :)
Ovechkin is +9; Kovalchuk is -1, Ovechkin hits and Kovalchuk plays with better players. Just thought I'd throw that out there
Let's not forget the ever important fact that Vinny is much better looking than Kovy.
Now, this isn't normally an issue, but I'll be watching this game in HD this year, and probably eating...
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