AJC > Sports > Thrashers > Blog > Archives > 2007 > November > 04
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Kovy for MVP?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Back-to-back hat tricks? I really thought that would be tough to beat, but Ilya Kovalchuk’s real accomplishment came when his performance in Tampa Bay cracked the top three on SportsCenter’s top plays. You know he’s doing something special when he can get a hockey game into the ESPN highlight mix on a college football Saturday. That was unbelievable, and everybody after the game was talking about how it started in Ottawa. This team, right now, feels like they can come back on anyone.
Now, if they wouldn’t get off to such sluggish starts, they wouldn’t need superhuman performances from their Russian superstar to bail them out, but we’ll let that slide for now. I’m not going to be the one to throw cold water on an exciting comeback.
Kovalchuk’s drive has been with a singular goal, and that is to get back to the playoffs. Even when the team was struggling, he knew exactly how many points behind the final playoff team the Thrashers were. Even last night, he was excited, not with six goals in two games, but because the Thrashers got their first division win.
In the summer, Don Waddell said that he’d be happy if the team was .500 after this 14 game stretch. He knew that after 14 games, the team would have played a quarter of its road games and that after that schedule is pretty favorable. Well, here were are and the Thrashers are 5-9. They’re 5-5 in their last 10. And they’re 5-3 under Waddell. And they’re only three games behind the Rangers for a top eight spot in the conference. Okay, they’d have to leap frog seven teams to get there, but this team buried itself with that 0-6 start and is showing some serious resiliency right now. And simply put, Kovalchuk is the reason why.
A breakdown by The Falconer points out that Ilya Kovalchuk contributed to 54.3 percent of the Thrashers points this season, more than any player in the NHL. How about that as an argument for MVP? Shoot, my plane is boarding, I’ve got to run. But is there a better player right now in the NHL than Kovalchuk?
