In 2013, Ilya Kovalchuk, the guy who’s been called the greatest natural scorer that the NHL has ever seen, made a decision to retire in the series just 3 seasons to some 15-year deal with the New Jersey Devils and head back to Russia to perform the remainder of his professional career in the KHL. Well, don’t call it a comeback, however the 34-year-old Kovie is currently considering a return to North America for its season.
The Russian sniper, who gathered 816 points in 816 career games played at the NHL, has played portions of the previous four seasons for SKA Saint Petersburg and is coming off a year where he amassed 78 points in 60 games — good for second in the league in scoring.
Though there’s a slew of challenges to clear when Kovie wishes to play for a team other than New Jersey, BetOnline thinks there is a 4/1 chance he begins the 2017-18 NHL season on the roster of the Montreal Canadiens.
In order for Kovalchuk to get cleared as a free agent, each NHL team (such as New Jersey) would have to reevaluate his unrestricted release from the Devils and I’m not so sure that’s realistic. The Devils got severely screwed from the Kovie retirement and it’s unlikely they’ll want him scoring goals against them for free. What could occur, however, is that the Devils (who still own his rights) concur to his return, sign him and promptly exchange him to another team.
As for the potential of the former Maurice”Rocket” Richard Trophy winner winding up with the Habs — it creates a lot of sense. Former KHLer Alex Radulov joined the Canadiens last offseason on a one-year deal and it looks like they’ll try hard to re-sign him. Radulov has hinted he’d like general director Marc Bergevin to make a run at Kovalchuk and given the Habs’ serious issues at the end, Kovie could be precisely what le physician ordered.
Montreal already has a strong Russian contingent together with the above Radulov, Alex Galchenyuk, Andrei Markov and Mikhail Sergachev all on the roster and also an all-Ruski forward line of Kovie-Gally-Rad will be amazing to see.
All that said, the trade to acquire Kovalchuk in the Devils would be a tough one to negotiate and it’d probably require the Habs to give a blue-liner and a future draft pick or two. There would also be a ton of other clubs at the race to scoop up the marksman of 417 NHL aims so by no means will this be an easy feat for Habs’ Steel to accomplish, and remember — all this is under the premise that the Russian winger even determines to return at all.
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