The Kovalchuk Kompetition...

There's are 5 or so teams that seem to be in on the Ilya Kovalchuk trade talks. The Rangers may be one of them and Devils may be another. The Islanders were also talked about. Thrashers GM Don Waddell wants NHL ready players and possibly a prospect or draft pick for Kovalchuk. Complicating matters, no team would can negotiate with Kovalchuk prior to him being part of their team. Quite a gamble considering he could just walk at the end of the season.

Kovalchuk already has turned down a 12 year deal for over $101 million according to a statement just released by Waddell:
http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=308935

TSN's Bob McKenzie is also reporting the Russian scoring machine wants the league max of $11.2 a year. That brings us to the Rangers and the salary cap disaster built by GM Glen Sather. The way I see it, if Chris Drury ($3 million tops), Wade Redden ($3 million) and Michal Rozsival ($2 million) were making what they should, that's over $10 million to work with. Would have been more if they let Rozsival go, which any team would have done with a player his age coming off hip surgery. But they didn't... so where's the money for this guy?

If we continue to dream, let's come up with a scenario. Waddell would demand one of Dan Girardi, Brandon Dubinsky or Ryan Callahan. I'd give two of them in Brandon Dubinsky and Dan Girardi. You may then be able to force Waddell to take Rozsival. If he wants a draft pick, throw it in there. The Rangers are going nowhere and have nothing but the same type of player on it (Drury, Dubinsky, Callahan... etc.). Those worried that Dubinsky could be a future Captain of this team... forget it. He's a second to third line player at best which I talked about all summer. Marc Staal is the future of the team.

This is the most boring team in the NHL. It sure would be nice to see Ilya Kovalchuk in a #17 Blueshirt. I'd give them whatever they want aside from Staal. Well it was nice to dream the impossible... but this financially cannot happen. Oh well... now I must prepare to watch an exciting team for once with Alex Ovechkin's Caps coming in. Maybe I won't fall asleep during the game after all....