Kovy in the Press

With Kovy in a scoring slump and getting frustrated (with himself and the team, as evidenced with him screaming at Christensen from the bench over a stupid play that cost a goal last night), lots of press is going around about Kovy - is he having problems because he's unhappy? Will he be moved before his contract is up? Will he pull a Hossa and basically ask to be moved to a contender?

"I put thinking in the future (on the back burner) because I love hockey so much," Kovalchuk told On The Fly. "Sometimes I get frustrated, but it's not like I go home and cry in my pillow. We'll get through this and be a better team." This coming from an SI article wondering how much longer he's going to be here. The article sums up our problems, and of course mentions the Zhit for Coburn trade, because you just HAVE to bring that up again when you talk about the stupid decisions our team has made in the past. The article's a re-hash, but worth it for this from Moose:

"Actually it's not that important who his center is," Hedberg said. "He's not a winger who is going to sit out there, waiting for the centerman to get him the puck. He's going to grab the puck and go and try to score. He just needs to play with guys who can win faceoffs, get him the puck at the right times and support him.

"Kovy enjoys playing the game so much that he's been frustrated at times. But he's still been creating chances and with one bounce, he'll be right back. Guys like him don't lose their enthusiasm. This is what he wanted to be doing since he was 10 years old. He wants to score so badly. And when he's scoring, he's happy."

Explains a lot. This blurb from TSN, published before the game last night, is a bit more optimistic. Kovy likes it here, and wants to play regardless of where we end up.

"It's frustrating, for sure, but it's so easy to ask for a trade and go play somewhere else and play on a good team," he said. "I'm here from the first day of my career and I want to go all the way, so hopefully we'll do better.

"I've got two more years and I'm going to play here for sure. I love it. They treat me first class, the fans love me. I can't say anything (bad) about here."

Of course, some of this is business, and if DW thinks that traduiing Kovy will help the team, that'll happen. Of course, with the Hossa debacle still fresh in our minds, I'd really rather not re-live the fun.