Kovalchuk Deal a Disaster for Atlanta Thrashers and the NHL

Score: New Jersey Devils and Ilya Kovalchuk 5
          Atlanta Thrashers and the NHL 0

The trade: Kovalchuk and whoever else for potential

For a team that was in the middle of only its second legitimate playoff run and the behind-the-scenes need to sell tickets, attract TV viewers, corporate sponsorships, and deals, this deal was an absolute disaster for the Atlanta Thrashers.

Yet the score would have been 10-0 if Kovalchuk had walked away as a free agent at the end of the year and the Thrashers had got nothing.

Instead with the free agent situation in the NHL as it is, Atlanta GM Don Waddell made a best-we-could-do deal, and then delivered the classic understatement, “This wasn’t an easy deal to make,” and then dozens of other optimistic statements that add up to “look-what-we-got!”

People 50 years and older have heard these statements before, in the optimistic bulletins made by American generals and politicians during the Vietnam War.

GM’s don’t make a deal like this during a playoff run.  This was a surrender to circumstances.  The minimum is “wait-till-next-year,” the maximum, “maybe-we’ll-still-make-the-playoffs.”

Changing the subject to the winners, the biggest one is Kovalchuk who will get a chance to win a Stanley Cup with a legitimate contender this year, and then stay if he likes what he sees or go elsewhere for approximately what he would have got if he had resigned with Atlanta.

For the Devils, the worst scenario is that they bow out in the first round again, their rent-a-player walks, and they lose that potential that really isn’t that much.

A number one draft choice sounds like a lot, but isn’t that much if you might be picking 30th.  The “big name” sent, Johnny Oduya has been listed in somebody’s Bleacher article as trade material because he was underachieving in the prime of his career at the age of 28.  The others given up may come back to haunt the Devils, but probably not seriously if they do.

The maximum is that the Devils win the Stanley Cup and Kovalchuk likes what he sees, resigns with the team who finally get consistent sellouts and lots of behind-the-scenes money deals that they weren’t getting before because they never had a star offensive big name.

Back to the Thrashers, this deal strikes at the soul of the team.  It may be demoralizing to the players left behind.  It may turn off whatever fans, corporations, and media the team has.

Waddell also has the reputation of not developing players and not building a team around Kovalchuk.

Stars like Kovalchuk are needed to sell tickets, regardless of how good or bad the team is.  If the future of the team in Atlanta was doubtful before, there’s probably speculation now about its long-term existence.

In that context, this deal was a huge disaster for Gary Bettman and the NHL, who already own and operate one orphan in Phoenix, now may have another one on its hands in Atlanta, and whose avowed policy is to keep teams in losing markets at all cost.

Even from the Devils side, this deal is risky for the NHL.  If Kovalchuk doesn’t fill the seats in New Jersey on a contending team, nothing will.

But the real catastrophe is in Atlanta.  The Thrashers were losing money with Kovalchuk.  They figure to lose further local support now that he has gone.

Cities like Quebec, Hamilton, Hartford, and possibly Seattle, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Houston, Oklahoma City, and Milwaukee will be circling like sharks. 

Will Jim Balsillie show his ugly face again?  Even worse, will the NHL have to beg him to?

If it were possible, the least Waddell should have done was trade Kovalchuk to a team like Edmonton, Boston (which owns Toronto’s number one choice), Carolina, or Columbus for their No. 1 choice next year. 

Then the Thrashers could say with some legitimacy that they have possible future potential to replace Kovalchuk.

Instead, speculation will increase about whether the Thrashers have a future in Atlanta.