Freeptop
Registered User
Listen,
I would LOVE to have a proper fitting, system working, dedicated, try his best, noncancerous, goal scoring Kovalchuk here too. Don't you think he would already be locked down by another team _unless_ there is something wrong - or just straight up too much to gamble on bringing him in?
LA didn't even look to trade him ( or did they? ). They just fired his ass and let some other club deal with him with LA having no strings attached to Kovalchuk.
Something just doesn't seem right. I just don't want to risk bringing him in, but I'm fighting myself... the fanboy in me wants him, but I just get Kessel vibes all over again like (I think) @Tom Hanks said earlier.
I believe they did try to trade him, but at a $6.25M cap hit that continued through next season as well (which was signed at 35, so comes with all sorts of fun cap implications), no other team was going to touch that, even if the Kings retained the maximum 50% of his salary.
On a one-year deal, the 35+ cap provisions don't apply, and at this point, he wouldn't be expected to get even half of what his previous contract was paying, so yes, I can see how some teams would be willing to take a chance there.
Personally, I don't see much reason for it to be the Pens, though.