Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Russian website says Flyers and Avs in on Kovalchuk

Russia v Czech Republic - 2010 IIHF World Championship

COLOGNE, GERMANY - MAY 23: of Russia and of Czech Republic battle for the puck during the IIHF World Championship gold medal match between Russia and Czech Republic at Lanxess Arena on May 23, 2010 in Cologne, Germany. (Photo by Martin Rose/Bongarts/Getty Images)

Martin Rose

The circus surrounding the possibility of superstar winger Ilya Kovalchuk signing anywhere continues to get more interesting. The other night we told you about a supposed max contract offer from the Islanders for Kovalchuk worth $100 million. Today, we’ve got a report from a Russian website citing Kovalchuk’s Russian agent (yes, he has two agents, the other being Jay Grossman) saying that two more suitors have made offers for him. Tom Gulitti from Fire & Ice gives us the details.

In a report on the Russian website, Life Sports, Ilya Kovalchuk’s Russian-based agent, Yury Nikolaev, says the the Philadelphia Flyers and Colorado Avalanche have also made offers to try to sign the unrestricted free agent left wing.

The report also mentions the Islanders, who made public their desire to sign Kovalchuk Friday night. Another article on the site mentioned the Devils.

If you’re one to believe reports from a Russian website with a potentially questionable source, perhaps taking the word of Avalanche beat writer for the Denver Post Adrian Dater will help clear some things up about the Avalanche’s supposed interest in Kovalchuk as he mentioned on Twitter. Dater is the one reporter who is most involved in what’s going on in Colorado and I’d like to think that he’s got the best measurement of what’s going on with the organization.

Avalanche in NOT in on Kovy. Period, end of story. Not happening!

There in NO pursuit of kovalchuk by Avalanche. The end

Avs are not in on kovy and never were.

As for Philadelphia’s interest, that’s perhaps the more interesting team to mention since it was reported the other day that the Flyers asked left wing Simon Gagne
to waive his no-trade clause. Who better to take up the salary you’d shed by dealing Gagne than Kovalchuk as he provides more offense than Gagne and has a better ability to stay healthy than Gagne. Philadelphia reporters haven’t rushed to shoot down the rumor and are, instead, understandably intrigued by the possibility. Unlike Colorado though, the Flyers aren’t swimming in salary cap space to make such a move happen.

That said, this is all some fun speculation and idle chatter as the only things we really seem to know at all about the Kovalchuk pursuit is that the Kings, Devils and Islanders are the ones openly discussing bringing him aboard. The Kings and Islanders have the cap space to make it work easiest, meanwhile the Devils have added a couple of Kovalchuk’s friends in Anton Volchenkov and Johan Hedberg but would have to get creative in how to make the money work should it come to that.