Finance-wise, I’m not sure that Kovy is the right player for this team at this particular moment. If an acceptable trade package can be put together (something much better than the Hossa trade), then I’d be willing to part with him. I knew when Ovechkin was signed to his current contract that it would cause trouble for teams down the road, the Thrashers in particular.

I also see very few ways the Kovalchuk contract can be worth it. Assuming we do something like 12-years @ 9 million, he might be worth it for 6-8 of those years, but in the out years? Not a chance. Long-term, we are better off moving him…

i thought we should have traded him last year too. the argument that fans will desert the team if kovalchuk leaves is ridiculous. thrashers fans and attendees fall into one of 3 categories: 1)those who dont know anything about hockey or the team but go to one or 2 games a season 2)casual fans that go fairly often, know the big players like kovalchuk but not much else 3) diehard fans that are very knowledgeable about the team and hockey. losing kovy wouldnt make any difference to the first group, because they dont know who kovalchuk is anyways. it wouldnt matter to the diehard group, because we understand the cap situation and the implications of keeping him. and although the 2nd group may question why the team couldnt retain kovy, some well placed advertising could easily market whatever new players we get from the trade (cam barker and versteeg?) and exciting young prospects we already have. for the longest time, our only player worth noting was kovy (with brief stints of heatley and hossa), but thats slowly changing (finally). although its been a great ride, i wouldnt be too sad if the team lost kovy as early as tonight and neither will/should any other fan.

The moment the owners decided to not fire Don Waddell after the post-playoffs disaster season is why we are here at this moment.

DW had too much faith in Ilya Kovalchuk. He has put this entire franchise’s short term future in the hands of Ilya and his excellently greedy agent….and they have spent the last month beating Don Waddell to a bloody pulp with his good intentions. Even if Ilya signs now, the negotiations have to be viewed as at least one reason for the abysmal December/January slide.

Wouldn’t it be a kick in the teeth if that old fool trades Ilya to the Blackhawks, and we get to watch Hossa and Ilya make a deep run into the playoffs as the Thrashers slowly slide into another mediocre spot in the NHL Lottery Draft.

Don Waddell has done more damage to hockey in Atlanta than any spy from Winnipeg or Hamilton could ever hope to. His continued employment is a slap in the face to anyone who has plunked their hard earned money down for this team.

All that has been stated is true but there is one possible positive outcome. There are a number of teams close to the cap that are ready to make cup runs. Chicago and Boston are the to obvious ones that may well have to shed salary prior to next season. There is no way DW is going to get what he could have in the summer of 08 or 09 for that matter but talented RFA aged players who have mid level contracts might be had for a rental in excahnge for a cup run.

While DWs past decisions have been questionable the last two season he has been much better at obtaining talent.

One of the problems we have is that fan perceptions of contract negotiations are often as far removed from reality as they can be. A case in point is what happened to Tom Glavine after the 2002 baseball season. The Braves wanted him to leave via free agency, but Glavine wanted to stay, so he used the local press to manipulate the Braves into making an offer. The Braves made a series of low ball offers to Glavine, each one worse than the one before it and Glavine kept agreeing to them. Eventually the Braves realized that he simply was not going to turn down any offer and leave, so the Braves pulled their final offer and told him to hit the road. Yet what do probably 90-95% of Braves fans think? “Greedy” Tom Glavine left in 2002 to get more money elsewhere when in fact the Braves pulled their final offer to him because he was going to take it. My point is that I am not at all convinced that the Thrashers are making a $10 million dollar a season offer for 10-12 years to Kovy. I’d be surprised if they are even willing to pay $9 million. They are 23rd in the league in payroll and we’re suddenly supposed to believe that they are opening the purse strings?

For whatever it’s worth, Waddell has stated that he feels that a player’s value goes up closer to the trading deadline, so that’s why Kovy wasn’t dealt. Plus, dealing him would have been a PR disaster. It would have told the fans that the owners simply were not committed to the team. The team is 29th in attendance right now and likely to be dead last once Kovy is traded. The owners gambled that the fans would come out if they held on to Kovy for a while, but the fans were not fooled and the gamble failed. Kane was drafted not just because he was the best player available, but because he is Kovy’s heir apparent and the future face of the franchise. Of course, if I am Kane, Bogosian and Enstrom, I have to notice that the owners let our franchise player walk. I wouldn’t get too attached to these young stars. They’ll be pulling a Hossa when their turn comes too. Josh Childress decided he’d rather play in Greece for a few years than stay with the Hawks. Joe Johnson, the guy whose arrival started all the legal mess with Belkin, turned down a $15 million a season extension and will leave the team as a free agent. Yet the Spirit seem oblivious to the point that is being made – the problem is THEM.

To me, this is all about the owners making a commitment to hockey. I have believed since Kane was drafted that the owners decided not to make a serious effort to re-sign Kovy, but to simply put an offer not low enough to be a complete joke but low enough that the probably won’t take it. If he does re-sign at a discount, then they’ll take it, but the real plan has always been to not re-sign him. For a while I thought that the problem might be Kovy, but looking back I really don’t think that they were serious about the negotations. As late as Thanksgiving by his own admission Waddell was playing word games with Jay Grossman, Kovy’s agent, and hadn’t even made an offer to him. Assuming that had he been traded over the summer, he would have brought more in a trade? Well, all I can say is that this is pretty optimistic thinking about a GM who thought that Daulton Leveille was a 1st round pick and who in the end traded Marian Hossa for Eric O’Dell, a prospect said to be still at least one more full year away from being NHL ready. Yes, Hossa was swapped for O’Dell. We had to give up Dupuis to get Armstrong, so that means that Hossa got swaped for Leveille (bad pick), Esposito (injuries and attitude may keep him from playing even 1 game in the NHL) and Christensen (traded for O’Dell). If Leveille and Esposito end up being worthless, and they may, we gave up Hossa for O’Dell.

Each fan can make up their own minds about what to do. As for me, I’m not going to any more games this season after Kovy is traded. I predict that the Thrashers will start a fire sale and move Armstrong and Kubina and possibly Kozlov if he waives his no trade clause. The Thrashers will be a lottery team in the draft this year. To me this is not about whether or not Kovy is worth whatever he is supposedly asking for. This is about whether or not the owners really and truly are committed to this team and I think that they are not. I’d love to eat my words and be proven wrong and see Kovy re-signed, but I don’t think it will happen. I see this as just the plan all along by owners who just don’t get it.

dennylambert! is entitled to his opinion, but I am sick and tired of the “real fans will support the team no matter what argument”. If he wants to pay for my tickets and that of my friends, I’ll be glad to go to a lot of games. But I’m not supporting these loser owners. Nor, it seems, are a lot of people who used to go to the games. Only a fool keeps throwing money down an empty hole. The people I go to games with have told me that they are going to thrown their support behind the Capitals once Kovy is traded. I may join them.

No way you pay Kovalchuk max salary for 10 years. Keep in mind that this team will never spend to the max cap number anyways, so it really is more than 20 percent of the total team payroll.

He simply isn’t worth that kind of money. I would argue Hossa MAY have been if we we’re going to sign someone to that kind of money – he’s a better two way player, can play on the PK, etc.

What is the point of not supporting your NHL franchise? People pee and moan about the cheap ownership (which they are), but all boycotting home games will do is move this team elsewhere. Yes the ownership should spend the money necessary to put a competitive team on the ice, but the fans have to show some commitment also.

I don’t agree with decisions in the past, and Waddell should have been gone long ago but I’d rather keep the Thrashers here, thank you very much.

At this point, the situation is a complete “Klusterchuk™.”

zontar, how many franchises have made bad decisions, oversaw terrible trades, and had awful gms for long period of times?? I would go out on a limb and say all 30 have (not just the islanders). its a part of hockey and it happens all the time, and almost every time it does occur, some fans like you declare that youre never going to go to game again, because that will serve the management for personally insulting you with their incompetence. And yet, the franchise lives on, and changes and the teams still win eventually. Its funny you bring up how bad the hawks management/ownership has been when theyre now currently 4th in the East. Did you threaten to never go to a Hawks game also after Childress left? Do you think if Johnson leaves, the team will never be good again?

Even though it’s tough to swallow, Atlanta is a small market city for arena sports, so when a player becomes a star, we can either spend 1/5 of the budget on him, or trade him for a mix of prospects/picks/cheaper players. this isnt a new phenomenon and it applies to most nhl teams right now. since all of us are just speculating on Kovy’s true offer, we dont know how much itll cost the thrashers. But as this franchise has realized year after year, one star, especially one who could cost 1/5 of the cap space, does not a stanley cup make. Yes, we could have gotten more for his last year, but we could still get some pretty good guys for kovy, and the team will live on.