So, If I were to sum up these concerns, the overall theme here is that because of these reasons, Kovy might suck.
That is 100% true. He might suck. But you know what?
Who cares? We don't need him to be good. It's a bonus if he is, but it isn't required. This team is not winning the cup in the next 2 years. They'll be lucky if they make the playoffs. Kovy playing well or poorly won't move the needle much in either direction.
His value to the team will be in filling a role the kids aren't ready to fill. Putting kids in positions they aren't ready for is a good way to ruin them. If he plays well, great. Maybe the team won't be a complete dumpster fire and we can trade Kovy down the road for more assets. In the meantime, signing him for free allows us to trade other players for more assets without completely gutting the team.
Other players are going to be traded. Gorton isn't done. It's very likely that Zucc will be traded. It's likely that at least one of Spooner/Namestnikov will be traded. Kovy's cap hit won't stop Gorton from making other moves.
I'm not sure that's true, but when has an NTC ever stopped us from trading someone? We signed Kotalik to a 3 year deal in 2009. He had a limited NTC with Calgary as one of the teams he wouldn't accept a trade to. We trade him to Calgary after 45 games.
As I said above, you want vets to insulate the kids so you aren't putting them in positions they aren't ready for. We want this team to be somewhat competitive. They don't need to make the playoffs, but being completely out of it by Halloween would be bad.
We don't want to create a losing environment. We've seen how that plays out with other teams like Edmonton and Buffalo.
There's a huge, huge difference between signing Redden to a 6 year deal and expecting him to be a top pair dman on a winning team, and signing Kovy to a 2 year deal in the middle of a rebuild. There are no expectations that Kovy has to live up to.
If he's good, great. If he sucks, so what. As long as he enables us to play the kids in their proper roles, he's doing his job. And if one of those kids shows that they are ready for more? Great, bump the kid up and move Kovy down. If Kovy plays himself out of the lineup, that's fine too. Go home to Russia. I don't care. His cap hit is meaningless while we are in the middle of a rebuild.
- We are going to be a bad team
- We need vets to insulate the kids
- It doesn't really matter if Kovy is good or not
If you just accept these truths, you will see that this is a good move for the Rangers.
