Where Will Ilya Kovalchuk End Up Next Season?

May 7th, 2010 by Neil Grewal Leave a reply »
Heading into the offseason, we can see that there are some rather attractive free agents this year.

With Patrick Marleau, Thomas Plekanec, Alexander Frolov, Scott Niedermeyer, Niklas Lidstrom, and Sergei Gonchar headlined as some of this year's top free agents, there is still one who stands out above the rest in Ilya Kovalchuk.

Kovalchuk finished up the past season with the New Jersey Devils, and in my opinion, was a big disappointment. When the New Jersey Devils acquired the services of Kovalchuk from the Atlanta Trashers for Johnny Oduya, Niklas Berfors, Patrice Cormier, and a first-round pick, they expected a lot more out of him.

In his 27 regular season games with the Devils, Kovalchuk only managed 10 goals and 27 points, and in the playoffs only two goals and six points in five games played. I think that it's safe to assume that the Devils expected a lot more from the superstar Russian sniper, but as it remains—the risk did not pan out in New Jersey's favor.

Kovalchuk's style of play just didn't fit in with the New Jersey Devil's system. Kovalchuk is used to being the star of the team in Atlanta and used to be the go-to guy ...

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