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The 9th Level: Ilya Kovalchuk Edition
This most recent season we, as a collective fanbase, witnessed was was undoubtedly one of the biggest roller coaster seasons a team could ever dream of going through, especially without making the playoffs. Drama filled is quite simply and understatement.
Throughout it all, little argument can be made that if this roller coaster had a drivers seat, Kovy was in it seemingly year round. His first half, like the teams, was simply miserable. No argument can be made there. We can call speculate as to what caused this but the one solid FACT is this: it happened. Likewise however, both the team and Kovy went on unbelievable tears in the second half of the season. This is not to place any blame anywhere for the overall result of the season. It’s again, simply a FACT. This year, the team lived and died on Kovalchuk to a very large extent.
Basic Statline 07-08 Through 10-11
GP G A PTS +/- PIM SOG % PPG PPA
07-08 WPG 79 52 35 87 -12 52 283 18.37 16 14
08-09 WPG 79 43 48 91 -12 50 275 15.64 12 24
09-10 WPG 49 31 27 58 1 45 179 17.32 10 9
09-10 NJ 27 10 17 27 9 8 111 9.01 2 6
10-11 NJ 81 31 29 60 -26 28 245 12.65 9 12
Thing To Notice On The Statline
Let Loose- Obviously Kovy for the most part has, and will continue to be held accountable during his tenure here in New Jersey, and in fact never quite have the freedom he had during his Thrasher days. However, while we could make the argument that Atlanta would have been better off had they instilled some more structure with Kovy, the fact is none of those teams had the same quality (on paper) of players that we have in New Jersey so its hard to say whether they were helping themselves or hurting themselves by letting him fly.
That said, notice, in 07-08 he had a 50 goal year, then again the same year we acquired him, he was playing at very close to a 50 g pace, and an even higher assist pace. This was just 2 seasons ago. This combined with his absolute tear we saw this year during the second half its probably safe to assume that his goal scoring ability is not on the decline, and a full year with a stable coach should be the true telling point of that attribute. Personally I do not expect 50 goals. But I do hope for him to reach the 40, 45 areas as he’s definitely capable.
Don’t just look at the goals however. Notice one other underlined detail. His shot totals in his final 2 full years with the thrashers, then compare them to this year. 283 in 07-08, 275 in 08-09 and then when you fast forward to this past season 245 in 10-11 and that’s with 2 more games played than either of the other 2 seasons. Look for him to be able to hit the 40’s as long as he has the confidence to be shooting the puck, something he was clearly lacking during the majority of the first half of this season.
The Buy In- A smaller detail, but a favorable one for the Devils none the less, and in my personal opinion proof that he does at the very least try to buy into the team first philosophy, is his PIM totals. No way to beat around the bush here, simply notice they have been almost cut in half on average compared to his seasons in Atlanta.
The Powerplay Helper- Notice that in the 08-09 season Kovy had 91 points. Anything else standout to you? How about the 24 powerplay assists? That’s a TON of powerplay assists, and it means something. EVERYONE on that powerplay, was truly contributing. Expect his point totals to rise if we are getting powerplay goals from the likes of Elias, Josefson, Tedenby, Palmieri ect..
Linemates
Here we have an obvious predicament, but or the first time during his tenure in NJ it seems we are truly narrowing down on who is, and who is not compatible with Kovalchuk. Playing style clearly matters, and not just Kovy’s. He and Zajac seemed to gel okay towards the end of the season, or at the least better than they had early on, but its easy to assume that this was largely due to Zajac making adjustments to his game instead of Kovy altering his. As we all know, Travis is excellent off of the cycle, down low, and along the boards (hmmmm I wonder whose game that sounds oddly familiar too?), meanwhile Kovalchuk has always seemed to excel when he is the trailer or the forward in the high slot.
Notice here, Zajac and Palmieri work the boards and down low, Kovalchuk makes his living in the high slot. This is a textbook goal for Kovalchuk.
We all saw Kovy trying to lead the rush for the most part of the season, and while he was excellent at backing defenders up, once he had done that, there was no room left for anything else. And we can all safely assume, Kovalchuk wasn’t suddenly scoring his goals from down low during the second half. This is not to knock either player. They simply aren’t playing to their strengths when they are playing together (typically).
That said, Kovalchuk has never done bad on the rare occasion (and I really have no idea why its been rare) that he’s played with Elias as his CENTER. Elias works well of the rush, and looks to get the puck to the half walls and high slot. Kovy’s big 3 sniping perches.
Then we have a player who I view as Elias 2.0, hell they even dress the same way. Mr. Jacob Josefson. We saw little flashes of nice chemistry between the 2 at the end of the season, and we’ll probably get at least a couple chances early on to see if its for real. But notice, in the following clip, 3 things.
1. Who carries the puck into the zone vs. who is the trailer
2. Josefson backs the defenders up creating space
3. Where Kovalchuk shoots from (just in off of the half wall)
We saw several times this is the type of play Josefson seems to live of offensively, and if it truly is, then we might have a winner in the Kovalchuk’s center sweepstakes, especially with Elias now headed towards the twilight of his career.
Future
Predicting the future is a little bit tough. It largely depends on how well the team as a whole rebounds from this season. Also assuming Parise comes back and is fully healthy and capable, I do not expect to see us sporting 2 different 50 goal scorers, or even 1 player with 50 and another with 40, if we did, that would be a very welcome surprise to me, but a surprise none the less. My expectation for Kovy is in a good solid year, he will pot 40-45, and I won’t be surprised if you see him do it, with 10-15 goals on the powerplay, which means that too, from a team aspect, must pick up as previously mentioned. However I can safely say I highly doubt his career is in decline or any such thing. As we saw during the second half of the season, he’s a far more complete player than he’s ever been, and while he’s no SuperJay, that’s always going to be a plus. My personal opinion is if we’re getting 40 goals out of Kovalchuk his cap hit is completely justified.
Conclusion
While he’s no Nikolai Zherdev, Kovy is a tough one to figure out, but luckily for us he’s both said, and shown that he does WANT to be a part of the team, and not be some enigmatic force. Even publicly placing the blame for the first half of this past season on himself. While still frustrating, its something I respect. He did show, however that during the second half of the season he has come a long way in his development of being a true team player, and being a complete player. He will never excel defensively, but as long as he can be held and hold himself accountable for mistakes and trying to avoid him, that’s all I ask, just for the love of God don’t be like Jagr a few years ago and tell the NY Post ‘its not my job to play defense’. As a complete player, Kovalchuk is trending upwards. He proved that, and now he must maintain it. If he continues what he did in the second half of last season he is well worth a 6.66 mil cap hit. Here’s to hoping the Kovy that helped carry the team the second half feels like hanging around for oh say, the next 14 years.
This most recent season we, as a collective fanbase, witnessed was was undoubtedly one of the biggest roller coaster seasons a team could ever dream of going through, especially without making the playoffs. Drama filled is quite simply and understatement.
Throughout it all, little argument can be made that if this roller coaster had a drivers seat, Kovy was in it seemingly year round. His first half, like the teams, was simply miserable. No argument can be made there. We can call speculate as to what caused this but the one solid FACT is this: it happened. Likewise however, both the team and Kovy went on unbelievable tears in the second half of the season. This is not to place any blame anywhere for the overall result of the season. It’s again, simply a FACT. This year, the team lived and died on Kovalchuk to a very large extent.
Basic Statline 07-08 Through 10-11
GP G A PTS +/- PIM SOG % PPG PPA
07-08 WPG 79 52 35 87 -12 52 283 18.37 16 14
08-09 WPG 79 43 48 91 -12 50 275 15.64 12 24
09-10 WPG 49 31 27 58 1 45 179 17.32 10 9
09-10 NJ 27 10 17 27 9 8 111 9.01 2 6
10-11 NJ 81 31 29 60 -26 28 245 12.65 9 12
Thing To Notice On The Statline
Let Loose- Obviously Kovy for the most part has, and will continue to be held accountable during his tenure here in New Jersey, and in fact never quite have the freedom he had during his Thrasher days. However, while we could make the argument that Atlanta would have been better off had they instilled some more structure with Kovy, the fact is none of those teams had the same quality (on paper) of players that we have in New Jersey so its hard to say whether they were helping themselves or hurting themselves by letting him fly.
That said, notice, in 07-08 he had a 50 goal year, then again the same year we acquired him, he was playing at very close to a 50 g pace, and an even higher assist pace. This was just 2 seasons ago. This combined with his absolute tear we saw this year during the second half its probably safe to assume that his goal scoring ability is not on the decline, and a full year with a stable coach should be the true telling point of that attribute. Personally I do not expect 50 goals. But I do hope for him to reach the 40, 45 areas as he’s definitely capable.
Don’t just look at the goals however. Notice one other underlined detail. His shot totals in his final 2 full years with the thrashers, then compare them to this year. 283 in 07-08, 275 in 08-09 and then when you fast forward to this past season 245 in 10-11 and that’s with 2 more games played than either of the other 2 seasons. Look for him to be able to hit the 40’s as long as he has the confidence to be shooting the puck, something he was clearly lacking during the majority of the first half of this season.
The Buy In- A smaller detail, but a favorable one for the Devils none the less, and in my personal opinion proof that he does at the very least try to buy into the team first philosophy, is his PIM totals. No way to beat around the bush here, simply notice they have been almost cut in half on average compared to his seasons in Atlanta.
The Powerplay Helper- Notice that in the 08-09 season Kovy had 91 points. Anything else standout to you? How about the 24 powerplay assists? That’s a TON of powerplay assists, and it means something. EVERYONE on that powerplay, was truly contributing. Expect his point totals to rise if we are getting powerplay goals from the likes of Elias, Josefson, Tedenby, Palmieri ect..
Linemates
Here we have an obvious predicament, but or the first time during his tenure in NJ it seems we are truly narrowing down on who is, and who is not compatible with Kovalchuk. Playing style clearly matters, and not just Kovy’s. He and Zajac seemed to gel okay towards the end of the season, or at the least better than they had early on, but its easy to assume that this was largely due to Zajac making adjustments to his game instead of Kovy altering his. As we all know, Travis is excellent off of the cycle, down low, and along the boards (hmmmm I wonder whose game that sounds oddly familiar too?), meanwhile Kovalchuk has always seemed to excel when he is the trailer or the forward in the high slot.
Notice here, Zajac and Palmieri work the boards and down low, Kovalchuk makes his living in the high slot. This is a textbook goal for Kovalchuk.
We all saw Kovy trying to lead the rush for the most part of the season, and while he was excellent at backing defenders up, once he had done that, there was no room left for anything else. And we can all safely assume, Kovalchuk wasn’t suddenly scoring his goals from down low during the second half. This is not to knock either player. They simply aren’t playing to their strengths when they are playing together (typically).
That said, Kovalchuk has never done bad on the rare occasion (and I really have no idea why its been rare) that he’s played with Elias as his CENTER. Elias works well of the rush, and looks to get the puck to the half walls and high slot. Kovy’s big 3 sniping perches.
Then we have a player who I view as Elias 2.0, hell they even dress the same way. Mr. Jacob Josefson. We saw little flashes of nice chemistry between the 2 at the end of the season, and we’ll probably get at least a couple chances early on to see if its for real. But notice, in the following clip, 3 things.
1. Who carries the puck into the zone vs. who is the trailer
2. Josefson backs the defenders up creating space
3. Where Kovalchuk shoots from (just in off of the half wall)
We saw several times this is the type of play Josefson seems to live of offensively, and if it truly is, then we might have a winner in the Kovalchuk’s center sweepstakes, especially with Elias now headed towards the twilight of his career.
Future
Predicting the future is a little bit tough. It largely depends on how well the team as a whole rebounds from this season. Also assuming Parise comes back and is fully healthy and capable, I do not expect to see us sporting 2 different 50 goal scorers, or even 1 player with 50 and another with 40, if we did, that would be a very welcome surprise to me, but a surprise none the less. My expectation for Kovy is in a good solid year, he will pot 40-45, and I won’t be surprised if you see him do it, with 10-15 goals on the powerplay, which means that too, from a team aspect, must pick up as previously mentioned. However I can safely say I highly doubt his career is in decline or any such thing. As we saw during the second half of the season, he’s a far more complete player than he’s ever been, and while he’s no SuperJay, that’s always going to be a plus. My personal opinion is if we’re getting 40 goals out of Kovalchuk his cap hit is completely justified.
Conclusion
While he’s no Nikolai Zherdev, Kovy is a tough one to figure out, but luckily for us he’s both said, and shown that he does WANT to be a part of the team, and not be some enigmatic force. Even publicly placing the blame for the first half of this past season on himself. While still frustrating, its something I respect. He did show, however that during the second half of the season he has come a long way in his development of being a true team player, and being a complete player. He will never excel defensively, but as long as he can be held and hold himself accountable for mistakes and trying to avoid him, that’s all I ask, just for the love of God don’t be like Jagr a few years ago and tell the NY Post ‘its not my job to play defense’. As a complete player, Kovalchuk is trending upwards. He proved that, and now he must maintain it. If he continues what he did in the second half of last season he is well worth a 6.66 mil cap hit. Here’s to hoping the Kovy that helped carry the team the second half feels like hanging around for oh say, the next 14 years.
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