The solution to Ilya Kovalchuk's woes

I agree that Kovy needs to be surrounded by better players in order to have a better chance at success. Too often he draws two defenders toward him and doesn’t have a teammate to pass to. He’s been making some good passes and should have a lot more assists than he does, but no one has been able to put them in the net. For his part, Kovy hasn’t adapted to the grinding, down-low style employed by the majority of his teammates.

The question is, to what degree should the team be built around getting the most out of Kovy? As much as I think it would help to put the ZIP line back together when Zach is healthy, Kovy and Zach play very different styles and I don’t believe that the ZIP line would really be an optimal use of either of our superstars.

The Atlanta Thrashers were built around Ilya Kovalchuk, for the most part. They also had a number of very high draft picks (Stefan, Kovalchuk, Heatley, Lehtonen) to supply top-tier talent for him…. and a lack of depth that meant their best results came from piling all their eggs into one basket.

The New Jersey Devils are not that team. Ilya Kovalchuk was brought here because of a perception that he was “the missing piece” (or one of them, anyhow). The team is not and will not be built around him, and there is no promise that the team will be able to draft that caliber of talent around him, no matter how good the Devils’ drafting has been (and there’s only one first-round pick of the Devils since 2000 who did not make it to the NHL). Nor will Kovy necessarily get all the best talent on his line, because the Devils have enough talent to populate multiple lines and will look for some degree of balance.

The other thought I took away from this article is the concept that the Devils are not constructing lines to help Ilya Kovalchuk out in a similar fashion to what he had in Atlanta. And in that particular category, I believe there are two things that haven’t been done for an extended period this season:

• I think he needs someone who will dominate the puck on his line, so that he’s less inclined to try and do everything himself. More than that, it almost has to be a veteran in this role, because I don’t know that a rookie or other inexperienced player would have the stature and cojones to stand up to Kovalchuk’s desire to rush end-to-end with the puck. The Devils don’t really have this sort of player — Scott Gomez would be perfect for this, but I don’t want that ugly contract and I suspect he’d veto any prospective trade back to NJ — but Patrick Elias probably comes closest. Not only does Elias like to play with the puck on his stick, but he’s a natural playmaker and he had excellent chemistry and numbers with Kovy last season (Kovy was 10-17-27 in 27 regular season games, mostly with Elias at center). Then again, truly gifted playmakers are very hard to find in this league and often get compensated very handsomely. There aren’t many players like Marc Savard out there…. maybe Joe Thornton and Nicklas Backstrom would fit into that category, but it isn’t a terribly long list after them.

• I think that he also needs someone with some finishing ability on his line, in order to draw some attention away from him. Now, there isn’t a Heatley or a Hossa to be had right now…. Zach Parise might come closest if this Devils’ roster were fully healthy, but the Devils are somewhat short on proven finishers (why Kovy as acquired in the first place). Of the youngsters we’ve seen, perhaps Mattias Tedenby has that sort of potential in him, although it then becomes a lot of pressure to put on the kid. If there’s someone who can take some attention, it gives Ilya more room to work with and fewer defenders to try and beat…. or teams can continue to do what they’ve done and Ilya becomes an expensive decoy while someone else nets a ton of goals.

Perhaps when Johnny Mac next shakes up the lines to try and get some offense, he could shift Elias and slot in a third guy there? I could live with Kovy-Elias-Tedenby, or even Kovy-Arnott-Elias if one feels the need to have a “true center” on the line (although you could go with the former and simply slip in Pelley or Mair for defensive zone draws if that’s a concern with Patty).

Not saying that Ilya shouldn’t be changing his game and what he does to maximize what he gets with this team…. but with a talent like his, we could at least meet him part of the way there. Square pegs and round holes and all that.

I’m a little late to this party, so sorry, but I need to correct some of what David said about Kovy’s linemates in Atlanta.

It is indeed correct that Kovy played with Marc Savard. In fact, when the decision was made to allow Savard to walk as a free agent and to not make a serious offer, there was a lot of thought by the fans and probably GM Waddell too that Savard might be a Kovy creation who would bomb on his own. They did play well together but clearly Savard was not a Kovy creation.

Kovy never played with Hossa except on the PP and in the final season when Hossa was a Thrasher. In desperation to get Hossa jump started he got placed on a line with Kovy in that final season, but he spent all of his previous 2 seasons playing with Kozlov and whatever scrub the coach could round up to make a line. Kovy and Hossa played together only 20-30 games tops.

I may be wrong about this as it was years ago, but I don’t remember Kovy and Heatley playing together that much either. i seem to recall that the Thrashers had them on different lines so that they could ice 2 lines with some scoring punch.

Kovy actually spent a good chunk of his career playing with 3rd and 4th line bums pressed into top line duty. The Thrashers basically would try to pair Kozlov with somebody good (Hossa, then Little) plus any bum they could get to round off the line (Belanger, White, etc.). Kovy’s best regular linemate was Savard, but even then the team would just put some bottom 6 forward on the top line at RW to flush it out. Basically Kovy showed an ability to play with anybody in Atlanta, so that meant that he rarely had regular linemates after Savard left. Some of the guys he’s been paired with are Holik, Thorburn, Sim, Stefan, Melanby (got 3rd line minutes at the end of his career in Atlanta even though mostly working a 1st line job with Kovy) and Rucchin. Those are the “good” ones. I shudder to look back into the past for the guys he played with early on.

Sorry guys, but given how Kovy scored like mad in Atlanta while playing with guys like Holik and Thorburn (you would not believe how good that line looked for the few weeks they played together) I have to disagree with your premise on his current problem. He spent too many years having guys like that ride along with him and he still scored for me to think that his problem is simply one of needing better linemates. I will say that you may be onto something in saying that he needs linemates to set him up. Even the bad guys he played with so much in Atlanta would do that to him.