Ilya Kovalchuk may not be Canadian, but when the league votes on an MVP, his name should be there alongside Crosby and Lecavalier.
(See Monday's column page for his argument.)
But in this instance I would argue for expanding the field.
For instance, who's better, Crosby, Lecavalier or Ilya Kovalchuk?
What's that, injecting a Russian into the debate and on a Canadian-based website no less?
Well, in a word, yes.
For starters, chew on this: Kovalchuk is on pace for 100-plus points
OK, not bad, you say, but Sid's already done that and likely will do it again this season and, for the record, on any given night Vinny is ahead of Ilya and Sid in the point-scoring race .
OK, true enough, but not factoring in Monday night's scoring, Kovalchuk is on pace for a 70-goal season and leads the league with 23 in 29 games. Lecavalier is keeping pace with 19 in 29 games, but Sid the Kid is experiencing a bit of a skid with just 14 in 29.
Then one could argue that in a league in which five-on-five goals are once again difficult to come by, Kovalchuk leads the league with 17 even-strength tallies while Lecavalier has 13 and Crosby 10. Kovalchuk also has more road goals (15) than he does home goals (eight) while Lecavalier has 14 at home and a mere five on the road and Crosby is split at seven and seven.
And while I would argue that all three players make the players around them better, we are talking about individual talents here and Kovalchuk's shooting percentage bests the other two by a wide margin. He has hit on 21.1 percent of his offerings. That's a far sight better than Lecavalier's 16.0 and Crosby's 15.4
In addition, Kovalchuk has twice netted a hat trick on the road this season. He also has his team, an acknowledged abomination when it comes to defence and goaltending, tied for second place with Tampa in the Southeast Division despite a horrendous 0-6 start, the loss of No .1 goaltender Kari Lehtonen to a reasonably long-term injury and the sacking of coach Bob Hartley.
Want more? Well, Kovalchuk notched 16 points (nine goals, seven assists) in his last 12 games and his team is 3-0-1 in December and was acknowledged as the league's player of the month for November. While he never stopped working under Hartley, now that his team has followed his lead, it is 14-7-1 since Hartley was sacked and replaced by general manager Don Waddell. Most of the players in Atlanta credit Kovalchuk for that. They also note that he's big, strong, fast and, despite rumours to the contrary, uses his linemates and the ice well.
And he's getting better.
Kovalchuk came to the league as a No .1 pick in 2001 with a reputation of having one of the best slap shots of any player in any league. He's made that reputation stand up, but in an era when free-flowing wingers slapping away one-timers from any point on the ice is almost totally shut down, Kovalchuk unveiled a second deadly weapon, the wrist shot.
Most of his goals now come from in close where the in-fighting is vicious and Kovalchuk doesn't back away. Ask any scout. He plays and plays well in traffic and he goes to places where he can get the wrist shot on target. Give him an inch and he'll take it to the net and do something when he gets it there.
So what's missing?
Well, a passionate or even interested media corps would help.
General manager Don Waddell speaks glowingly of his prize player, but outside of a few sports writers and TV types in Atlanta, few are ever there to listen.
A second problem is Russian players certainly don't help themselves in the world of media relations with their reluctance to deal with media or in many cases, the English language. Playing on a team in the Deep South certainly doesn't help either. Being in a market that doesn't particularly care about pro sports in general let alone hockey in particular, works against him as well.
But the biggest problem appears to be that no one has anointed Kovalchuk as a player worth watching.
Not like Wayne Gretzky did when he announced Crosby may well be the second coming of himself. Not the way former Lightning owner Art Williams (for better or worse) did when he declared Lecavalier would be hockey's answer to Michael Jordan.
Most people in the game thought Kovalchuk would be good, and more then a few said he would be great, but none of them had the cache of the Great One or even the bluster of Williams, best known in Tampa sports circles as the Departed One.
It's why Kovalchuk struggles in the superstar department. Heck, he's not even a lock for the All-Star Game via fan voting and the game is being played in his home rink.
That's a surprise to Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. Asked by a reporter from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution who he would hand pick for a teammate if he had the choice, he answered Kovalchuk without hesitation.
It was a nice gesture, but it would have received more attention had he said Michael Jordan.
I haven't even mentioned a player named Henrik Zetterberg whose only fault seems to be his last name isn't spelled Yzerman. And then where is it written that the best can't be a defenceman like, oh say, Nick Lidstrom and don't get me started on the merits of goaltenders. When we've got the likes of Roberto Luongo, Chris Osgood, Pascal Leclaire, Henrik Lundqvist and Tim Thomas and that ridiculous .936 save percentage, MVP honours for backstops doesn't need to start and end with Dominik Hasek.
Vinny or Sid, hey, they get their props, but this is one race that's not even close to being decided. Not by a long shot or perhaps even a fistful of darn good saves.