It’s that time of the year again. Every player is rumored to go everywhere and the Boston Bruins are in the mix for every high-quality player available.
The Bruins are in a huge need of boosting their secondary scoring and there have been many players linked with a move to Boston for players such as Jakob Silfverberg or Artemi Panarin. But there is one player who the Bruins stay away from. Los Angeles Kings forward Ilya Kovalchuk.
As Jimmy Murphy and The Fourth Period of David Pagnotta are reporting, Kovalchuk is available and the Bruins are one of the teams interested.
Was also hearing tonight that #NHLBruins and #Isles are two teams #GoKingsGo F Ilya Kovalchuk would be “inclined to” waive his no-movement clause for. @BruinsCLNS
— Jimmy Murphy (@MurphysLaw74) 13. februára 2019
Kovalchuk wanted to return to the NHL last year. After five years in Saint Petersburg in the KHL, he changed his mind and wanted to chase the Stanley Cup for one last time. Kovalchuk won Gold Medal at the Olympics last year and certainly wants to obtain his Triple Gold Club membership.
There were apparently at least four teams interested in acquiring Kovalchuk last summer in the free agency. The teams were the Kings, the Dallas Stars, the Bruins or the New York Rangers. Kovalchuk chose to go to California and signed with Los Angeles. However, the Bruins shouldn’t feel angry or snubbed about that one. General manager Don Sweeney simply offered Kovalchuk a two-year deal worth around $5,000,000 per season.
The Kings won this battle as they offered Kovalchuk a three-year deal worth $6,250,000 per season. In his 47 games played this season, Kovalchuk has collected 11 goals and 15 assists for 26 points. The Bruins shouldn’t really feel snubbed or angry over what happened last summer; they should be feeling happy that they “missed” on Kovalchuk.
It would be just pure insanity for Don Sweeney to trade for Kovalchuk. The Bruins already have a lot of issues with their salary cap situation and adding $6,250,000 of salary cap hit for two more seasons would definitely not help.
Although Kovalchuk is still a lethal force, just as he showed with roofing that shootout attempt on Thursday night win against Jakob Markstrom and the Vancouver Canucks. Maybe a change of scenery would help him and if the Kings retained half of his salary, which is not their goal, that would possibly make a little bit of sense. But the main problem is last summer.
The Bruins told Kovalchuk they are going to contend and if he wants to play for them, he needs to take a bit of discount and a short-term deal. Nevertheless, Kovalchuk decided not to go to Boston and went for LA instead. The Bruins should not provide a helping hand and bail out both Ilya Kovalchuk and the Los Angeles Kings for their respective bad decisions from last July.
