He may have seemed like a bad addition to the likes of you, but those of us with a more innate understanding of the game can see that he fulfilled his role to a T.
Kovalev was brought for three reasons - one of which was to mentor their young skilled players who looked up to him as kids. If you do a cursory check you'll see that their young skilled players are doing exceptionally well, it's the rest of the team that is completely falling apart. A prorated 1 million to set Huberdeau, Mueller on the right track relatively early in their careers is a small price to pay. The other reason he was brought in was depth - Florida had a bunch of regulars injured and their prospects like Shore were questionable at best at the start of the season. Well, Shore has proven himself (undoubtably with help from Kovalev's guidance) and as a result got the final spot on the 2nd line. Kovalev is not a 3rd line player, and with their injured 3rd liners coming back there is no spot left for him.
And the third, most important reason Kovalev was brought in was to be a scapegoat if things went south, much like Radulov and Semin were for their respective teams. The biggest story from Florida should be that Stephen Weiss is playing like complete and utter *******, as is Kris Versteeg. Yet, this aptly manufactured drama is taking the heat from all of them. Watch this Russian Blame gambit be used more and more in the coming years by savvy GMs wanting to deflect negative attention from their teams.
Oh, he also contributed to a balling home opener the momentum from which has kept attendance much higher than it should be with the way they're playing, but that's just a cherry on top.