12 Days of Kovalchuk: Day 2, Even the Canadians Admit He's Awesome
Welcome to the 2nd day of Kovalchuk. I had all 12 days nicely planned out, but our new BFF, Jim Kelley at SportsNet.ca, has inspired me to change up day two. Jim has written one of the best all-out love-fest pieces praising Ilya Kovalchuk that I've ever read. Certainly the best words of praise that have ever originated from our neighbor to the north.
How does Mr. Kelley think Kovy stacks up against Sidney Crosby and Vincent Lecavelier?
And while I would argue that all three players make the players around them better, we are talking about individual talents here and Kovalchuk's shooting percentage bests the other two by a wide margin. He has hit on 21.1 percent of his offerings. That's a far sight better than Lecavalier's 16.0 and Crosby's 15.4I am compelled to point out that Mr. Kelley agrees with my argument from yesterday:
In addition, Kovalchuk has twice netted a hat trick on the road this season. He also has his team, an acknowledged abomination when it comes to defence and goaltending, tied for second place with Tampa in the Southeast Division despite a horrendous 0-6 start, the loss of No .1 goaltender Kari Lehtonen to a reasonably long-term injury and the sacking of coach Bob Hartley.
Want more? Well, Kovalchuk notched 16 points (nine goals, seven assists) in his last 12 games and his team is 3-0-1 in December and was acknowledged as the league's player of the month for November. While he never stopped working under Hartley, now that his team has followed his lead, it is 14-7-1 since Hartley was sacked and replaced by general manager Don Waddell. Most of the players in Atlanta credit Kovalchuk for that. They also note that he's big, strong, fast and, despite rumours to the contrary, uses his linemates and the ice well.
And he's getting better.
But the biggest problem appears to be that no one has anointed Kovalchuk as a player worth watching.
Not like Wayne Gretzky did when he announced Crosby may well be the second coming of himself. Not the way former Lightning owner Art Williams (for better or worse) did when he declared Lecavalier would be hockey's answer to Michael Jordan.
Most people in the game thought Kovalchuk would be good, and more then a few said he would be great, but none of them had the cache of the Great One or even the bluster of Williams, best known in Tampa sports circles as the Departed One.
It's why Kovalchuk struggles in the superstar department. Heck, he's not even a lock for the All-Star Game via fan voting and the game is being played in his home rink.
So today's reason to vote for Kovy: Even the Canadians think that Ilya Kovalchuk may be better than Sidney Crosby, Vincent Lecavalier and Alexander Ovechkin... and as all Canadians will tell you, they know far more about hockey than we do.
Tip of the hat to J.P. for sending me this story last night.
12 brilliant comment(s):
Better than Lecavalier? You decadent Philistine!
If a Canadian said it, it must be true.
I'll say that guy had a few too many molsons and flipped across a Thrashers game with them losing but Kovalchuk was the only Thrash scoring.
Sorry Kovalchuck, but I still smell MVP for Ovie this year.
Can I just say that robin's egg blue does nothing for Kovy? How bout doing him in traveling whites for day 3 :)
Should point out that Kovy can lay a hit when he's so inclined. He flattened Pavel Kubina during the last Olympics, and Kubi didn't come to until he'd left blood on the ice. Agree that Ovie lays more hits more often.
Granted, I don't live in Atlanta anymore (sigh), but I wonder if the wonderful Atlanta Spirit hasn't put up billboards saying, "Vote for Kovy!"...
From what I'm sensing, it's nowhere near the marketing/ballot-box stuffing we see for the MLB All-Star game.
Wayne,
No billboard for Kovy related to the all-star game. I'm not overly surprised about the lack of promotion outside the arena. I think there is a concern about playing favorites and investing too much into promoting Kovy if they aren't doing the same for Slava and Hossa.
They may not have a public media campaign for Kovy (and really the baseball folks don't do that either...instead they have sensible voting strategies the NHL has decided to avoid) but the team is doing things to target fans--and I'll highlight a few of them during the 12 days of Kovy. There is a video on the website that is shown at games, there are voting stations at games and Ben Write is doing his part over at the team blog.
I gave a vote to Kovy. Granted I gave Vinny and Marty my vote 1st. After last night I expect a 20 goal night in the ATL Tuesday!
My thanks RJ. Good of you to do the right thing here. Now how about doing it a bunch more times :)
Don't do it, RJ. It's a trick...it's a TRICK!
Hey, if you're going to use your vote on a Russian superstar, you might as well use it on the best one - Ovechkin! You know you want to...
What i think of Ovie...Ovierated. :) Watched him extensively last night. Ehh...
Ouch. That pun was painful, RJ, thank you ;)
Last night was admittedly an off night for Ovie - he still had 7 shots on goal AND took a nice little crosscheck/slash to the face, too. And of course, that didn't stop the Caps from beating the Bolts, either...
Yeah yeah, that slash was off the shield. He's a great actor, I'll nominate him for an emmy before I give him an all-star vote. If he was a real hockey player, he wouldn't wear a shield (see Vinny & Marty), and take the stick across the nose like a man!
Go here to see what I mean:
http://picasaweb.google.com/beetlefreek/
General/photo#5144978354826811762
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