Kovy Sweepstakes dying down?

UNCLE.  Mo mas, no mas!

Thanks to the three massive, massive trades yesterday, you could be easily forgiven if you glanced at your calendar and thought it was March 3rd. While the fine gentlemen over at Pension Plan Puppets practically had a party over the news (specifically, a going away kegger for Toskala) - actually they declared January 31st a national Canadian holiday - the Flames and Rangers are left wondering what exactly the long term results will be.  The Ducks, I'm sure, are probably just wondering what they're going to do if Hiller goes down.

Needless to say, Twitter twit'sploded yesterday with all sorts of tweets regarding Calgary and New York... most of which had the #kovalchuk hashtag attached.  Because OMFG THEY'RE BOTH CLEARING CAPSPACE!!!!!!111  They didn't HAVE to clear that much space.  Their teams are both not playing their best hockey, and their GMs thought the best plan of action was a re-tooling of the lineups.  You know, come to think of it, why would Waddell trade Kovy to someone neck in neck for one of the last 3 playoff spots? And didn't Kovalchuk say that he'd rather not play in a hockey bubble city?  Wait, what - facts and common sense?  Let's ignore that - it's Ilya Kovalchuk for God's sake!

Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun seems to think that the Kovalchuk Derby is about kaput.  Ignore the cap clearing moves just made - look at what Waddell wants in return.  For a rental player, he wants the moon.  It's understandable, because of the caliber of player Kovalchuk is, but the Thrashers have waited almost too long.  All the talking to the Kings and going back and forth is quickly becoming for naught, as Waddell won't allow anyone to talk to Grossman about a contract extension.  Who wants to give up a top six forward, prospects, and a first round draft pick for a guy you're only going to have for a month and a half?

There was a phantom rumor on Twitter yesterday regarding Kovy staying put - people were trying to figure out of that meant re-signing or just the Thrashers not being able to unload him.  It's starting to look like the latter.