How many pucks could a Kovalchuk chuck if a Kovalchuk could chuck pucks? Well, 189 in the past four NHL seasons and another 26 this season. That scoring ability has gotten a lot of teams wondering what they would have to give up in order to get Ilya Kovalchuk as his contract with Atlanta nears expiration.
That also spawned a little idea around the SB Nation Hockey community to see what value would fans of certain teams give up for the coveted Kovy. It started at Bird Watchers Anonymous, the Thrashers blog, and spread like wildfire to 11 other teams.
In all reality, there is no way the Red Wings would have the cap room to bring in Kovalchuk with out giving up some key players (Franzen, Kronwall, etc.) in exchange, which might make it worthless in the first place. But never-the-less, it's a fun little idea and we want to get your thoughts on who you'd give up for the very gifted and consistent scorer from the Thrashers.
Detroit sits at a very slim cap space of about $919,000 and Kovalchuk's contract is a hefty $6.389 million. So any trades would require nearly equal contract values and likely several players for the Wings to keep their top end together. Don't worry too much about the actual cap numbers but a general ballpark area would be good. Keep in mind he'd also need to re-sign to make any of this worthwhile so conditional picks would be key.
Anyway, if you want to take part in this fun little filler in between games, comment with the following:
Detroit Gets: Ilya Kovalchuk
Atlanta Gets: ____your answer here___
My answer after the jump
Detroit Gets: Ilya Kovalchuk
Atlanta Gets: Valtteri Filppula (as much as it pains me to say), Jonathan Ericsson, Ville Leino, 1st round pick in 2010 draft, and a conditional 1st round pick in 2011 draft if he re-signs.