Thoughts On Kovalchuk, Koivu & Eklund

I felt inspired by what I've been seeing around over the last couple days and felt compelled to comment on some things.

First, the Ilya Kovalchuk madness needs to stop. The speculation of where he'd sign has been going on since well before the UFA period opened on July 1.

As a Pens supporter, I would clearly like to see him leave the division and preferably the conference. His shot and quick release are lethal and seeing him six times a year is something I'd rather not experience.

That being said, his coming to the New Jersey Devils was NEVER the right move. For a guy who is known for his offense, why would a mind-numbingly, boring and defensive-minded team trade a king's ransom for a guy that turned down $100 million from his then-current team?

It's a huge risk and had they won the Stanley Cup this season, no one would have questioned it. However, the Devils got dominated in the first round and were hitting the golf course by the end of April.

Based on everything I've seen from the insiders and even Eklund, who thinks he's an insider, it's rather apparent he wants to go play in Los Angeles.

Can you blame the guy? Jack Johnson, Drew Doughty, Anze Kopitar etc. Hell, I'd even consider coming out of a self-induced retirement from playing hockey to have a go with those three guys.

On top of that, the Kings clearly want Kovalchuk, so what the hell is taking so long in hammering out a contract?

This is bordering on middle school dance behavior where you tell your friend to go ask the cute girl if she'd dance with you because you're too afraid of rejection in front of the entire school and the pressure is too high with high school just around the corner and if she says no, the next four years of your life could be worse than Alexandre Daigle's career, but if she says yes, the whole student body will respect you and you'll be a Greek god for all of high school.

(Gotta love Google image search)

Wow....that got a little out of hand, but anyway.

The Kings and the Kovalchuk camp want to get a deal done. Plain and simple. So get the damn thing done so the rest of the league can get back to retooling their rosters and infuriating their fan bases by making awful moves.

Which brings me to my next point.

The Minnesota Wild signed Mikko Koivu to a seven-year $47.25 million contract extension that will keep him in Minny through the 2017-18 season.

I'd have a joke about that, but the contract is worth a hearty laugh if you're not a Wild fan.

If you are a Wild fan, it probably provokes a lovely stroll through traffic while wearing dark clothing at night.

How is Koivu worth that much money? Am I missing something?



That much money for a guy who has only barely eclipsed the 70-point plateau once in his career? Is he going to be playing against kids that size? If so, then it's a brilliant move.

UPDATE:

During a conversation via Twitter with OneSmugPug, he suggested one of my Tweets be added to this.

CaseySheaPens: @OneSmugPug and I know Koivu was having fun with those kids but I was hoping for Bob Probert to go Kool-Aid man through the boards and end it.

OneSmugPug has a blog of his own you should check out after you've read every word of every post for the last 3 years on this blog. Seriously, the time and effort will be worth it both here and with his work. It'll change your life.

You can also find him and Brian Metzer at From The Point, which might just be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Seriously, it's good stuff and made doubly better for Pens fans.

Now back to the ramblings:

Sure Koivu's a good player, but for that kind of money you could either sign another stud free agent or bring in a couple other guys to help round out the roster. I'd come up with names, but my head hurts trying to justify that kind of contract for a guy like him.

Finally, everybody's favorite rumor guy is publicly defending himself against the trolls of the Internet.

It's been rather apparent and proven by many people, that his site is something you read when you're having a bad day and you need a laugh.

I'm sure he knows some people on the inside and whatnot, but the guy is never right.

Ok sorry, my bad. According to HockeyBuzzHogwash.com, Eklund was right 3.1 percent of the time over a span of 17 months. During that time he was correct on 15 rumors and wrong on 457.

Here's the thing, people still flock to his site only to be led off the edge like a group of lemmings.

Most of these people are probably not hockey fans to begin with and don't know the more reliable sources like Darren Dreger, Bob McKenzie and Spector to name a few.

Either way, no one's stopping you from going to it.

The problem persists when those uninformed individuals then post on their blogs, Facebook pages or Twitter accounts what this guy is saying as if it's truth. Sorry not truth, more like an e5. Yeah, that's more accurate.

Regardless of what you think of the guy, he showed a different side on his latest post this afternoon.

He posted what may be the longest (and by default the post with the largest amount of typos ever) entry in the history of the site.

However, he spends little time updating the status of Kovalchuk and the overwhelming majority of the post defending what he does and why he does it.

We all know why he does it, so I won't even go into it.

However, I was more perturbed that he was criticizing the people who criticize him, which will only add fuel to the fire I'm sorry to say.

When you boil it down, his site is a blog, just as this is a blog.

The sole purpose of a blog is for the author to express an opinion. Sure, some use blogs to report on factual things and such, but the majority of blogs are opinionated ramblings.

The best part about blogs is that people can comment on them and say whatever they want.

Why?

BECAUSE IT'S THEIR OPINION!

Not everyone is going to agree with your opinion on things. People are going to call you out. Someone living in their parent's basement with nothing better to do with their time, is going to call you out all the time!

Why?

BECAUSE THEY CAN!

As the author of a blog and other published works on various websites, you can't take the comments seriously. Reading them is fine, maybe you might pick up something you could improve upon or engage your audience a bit more through the comments, but to sit there and drive yourself to the point of making a public defense of your work?

Come on, that's a bit much.

Anyway, this is getting a bit longer than intended and if you've made it this far, I applaud your effort and anxiously await your scathing comments that will cause me to show up all bleary-eyed and exhausted to work tomorrow.

Pens Go 1-1 Over Weekend

Things have been rather hectic for myself over the last few days so this will be relatively short as well.

I'm happy with the weekend's results for the most part.

The 4-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings was what I expected in that game. The Kings are not a team the Penguins should lose to. They showed up and competed and got the valuable two points in the standings.

The lone goal given up by the Pens can't really be blamed on anyone on the ice. It was a 5-on-3 powerplay goal on a bomb by Drew Doughty that was tipped by Michal Handzus.

Video Highlights Courtesy Of NHL.com


The blame here will go on the two guys in the penalty box. In this case, Mark Eaton and Jordan Staal took minor penalties 20 seconds apart that eventually set up this goal.

All around I was happy with the performance in this game and even Sunday's 3-1 loss to the hated Flyers.

The Penguins once again wore the ugly powder blue jerseys and paid for it as a result. Can we please stop this experiment already?

For the most part, the Pens dominated the game and forced Martin Biron to win the game for Philadelphia.

The Pens got a few pucks behind Biron, but just not over the goal-line. On several occasions a Flyers player was there to clear the puck out of danger, or Biron somehow found the puck just in time.

The first Flyers goal is entirely Rob Scuderi's fault.

With the Flyers on a powerplay in the first period, Mike Knuble fired a shot on Marc-Andre Fleury who made the save, but left a rebound. Scuderi attempted to clear the puck up the middle of the ice on his backhand while staring Fleury in the face and completely whiffed on it.

The attempted clear became a direct pass to Simon Gagne who buried the puck behind Fleury for the early 1-0 lead.

Video Highlights Courtesy Of NHL.com


The second goal was another penalty killing mishap in the second period. With the Flyers breaking into the zone and driving to the net, Brooks Orpik made a play on his man as he should have.

Mark Eaton was visibly confused and somehow didn't notice Scott Hartnell racing to the backpost looking for the easy tap-in goal. Jeff Carter saw Hartnell and attempted a pass to him that ended up hitting Hartnell in the skate and going in. The goal was reviewed and deemed legit.

Eaton takes the full point on this one for not blocking the pass and not picking up the backside player.

The Flyers third goal was an empty netter and I will not assign points for empty net goals, unless a Penguin puts it in their own net.

The effort was there, but the bounces went Philadelphia's way. Simple as that. No need to dwell on it. The Penguins just need to focus on continuing to play with high energy and effort and things will work out in the end.

Up next are the recently vastly improved Calgary Flames in what should be a good measuring stick for the Penguins. The Flames come to town on Wednesday.

Updated Hal Gill Quotient Standings:

Kris Letang - 6.34 - 15 GP
Marc-Andre Fleury - 5.08 - 17 GP
Sergei Gonchar - 5.08 - 16 GP
Hal Gill - 5.34 - 17 GP
Mark Eaton - 6.33 - 18 GP
Brooks Orpik - 5.09 - 18 GP
Rob Scuderi - 4.50 - 18 GP
Ryan Whitney - 3.5 - 6 GP - TRADED
Jordan Staal - 2.88 - 18 GP
Evgeni Malkin - 2.0 - 18 GP
Matt Cooke - 1.0 - 18 GP
Ruslan Fedotenko - 1.0 18 GP
Tyler Kennedy - 1.0 - 18 GP
Pascal Dupuis - .83 - 18 GP
Max Talbot - 1.0 - 18 GP
Sidney Crosby - 0.5 - 4 GP
Referee Paul Devorski - 0.5 - 1 Game Reffed
Bill Thomas - .33 - 5 GP - WAIVED