"The reason we got Alex Mogilny at that time was for similar reasons: what he could bring offensively with the shot he had and he could do almost individually at times, but still be a team player. I feel that Iyla can bring that sort of explosiveness and also I really believe strongly that he wants to win and he will fit in."
Lou Lamoriello, comparing the move to bring in Kovalchuk to his move about a decade ago to bring in Alexander Mogilny to New Jersey, as reported by Gulitti. In case you're wondering when the last time Lou made a move like this.
Check out that post. Parise's excited, Kovalchuk's excited, Salmela's excited, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Lou's excited. New Jersey Devils Status as of Feb. 4 & 5, 2010: Excited.
7 months ago
John Fischer
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Add me to the list of those excited!
What you fail to understand in your joyless myopia is that baseball is the key to life-- the Rosetta Stone, if you will. If you just understood baseball better all your other questions your, your... the, uh... the aliens, the conspiracies they would all, in their way be answered by the baseball gods.
Grinning from ear to ear… Sure feels like the mogilny deal.
Glad to finally get on this site , just found out about it last week. I live in vancouver bc and BLEED red and black sine 89….
Its a great day to be a devils fan… bring on the annoying toronto team and there annoying fans… although not as annoying as Vancouver Cajunk fans…
Mogilny vs. Kovy??
Similar but different situation. Why? Mogs was on the downside of his career(though he had an awesome 2000-2001 with us. Kovy is just ONE YEAR OLDER THAN PARISE!!! Think abou that for a sec….. Mind-Blowing, isn’t it?
Lock this guy up long-term along with Parise and you’ve got the BEST Goal-Scoring Tandem in the LEAGUE, BAR NONE.
Lock this guy up long-term along with Parise and you’ve got the BEST Goal-Scoring Tandem in the LEAGUE, BAR NONE
Key words = long term. Will Lou spend that kind of money on him?
Lou would NEVER go for a deal like this if he did not plan on AT LEAST making a GOOD REASONABLE OFFER to Kovy. And the idea of playing in the Playoffs year after year after year will also be a MAJOR Sticking point for Kovy to decide to take less money to stay long-term.
So yes. I do believe that Lou, for the first time in his GM career, will open up the Scrooge McDuck Money Bin and give Kovy what he wants(hopefully it’s not 100 million..LOL)
It would be THE precedent-setter, no doubt...
But then what of Parise? Don’t know his contract situation but paying more than one superstar can get very tricky…ask Chicago, and Philly…
The other thing is:
"And the idea of playing in the Playoffs year after year after year will also be a MAJOR Sticking point for Kovy to decide to take less money to stay long-term."
Will Martin Brodeur play past next season? No offense to Danis and the G on the farm, but it’s a worry that Lou would have to sell Kovalchuk on "..the idea of playing in the Playoffs year after year after year …" without Marty. MB is truly an amazing competitor who has been integral (essential?) to Devil success (read "Cups") but will he call it a day after this season with arguably the best G career ever should the Olympic Gold Medal come his way? Or even if it doesn’t, and as amazing as he is, he is 39…If he does, the sell job becomes much harder, yeah? Kovalchuk has certainly seen first -hand what it’s like to play without even decent, let alone stellar, goaltending.
(Of course Lou has pulled many a wabbit out of his hat — isn’t that wight, Ilya? — has he got MB’s successor waiting in the wings?)
The major “Wild” card (yes, very very bad pun) is Lemaire. Kovalchuk, so mild-mannered and subservient, playing for Lemaire, so flexible and receptive. Interesting situation to say the least.
After the “negotiations” with Atlanta, would it be far-fetched to think Kovalchuk wanted out of ATL (and hey, who knows how far the Devils could go in the playoffs? Bonus for him.), but has no intention of signing before he tests UFA waters?
The gamble of all time for Lou in some respects should Kovalchuk move on, but if he stays…
Got to be realistic about this, yet keep the fingers crossed at the same time.
At the very least it’ll be a very interesting stretch run for Devils fans.
one thing that helped with molgilny and malakov
was having fetisov as a assistant coach.i realy think slava helped to bring out the best of both of those players.i wonder if there are any russian x devils that could be brought back as asst. coach to help motivate kolvachuk.its just a thought.
by Imperator_Celtic on Feb 5, 2010 1:02 PM EST reply actions
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