MTL says yes CGY says no

Switch the picks

why would MTL accept and ECHL player we dont have a team to send him to and a 3rd?

a 2nd , sure its worth it then
but anything less we'd rather keep Kovy as he's become a lockeroom leader at time when our leaders were out
he stepped in here and thrived plus since he's come Suzuki's jumped from 7th in rookie scoring to 3rd in rookie scoring

to me having our first top 3 rookie race leader since Gallagher has value and if Kovalchuk helps him produce a 3rd just isnt interesting enough

Probably right. A 50-60 pick isn’t that much to give up for Kovalchuk. The only thing is that he is thriving in an environment where he plays almost 20 mins a night. I’m not confident he’d get those minutes on an actual contender.

GO PENS GO!! I like the sound of the SC coming back again!!!

i agree

MTL's top players arent top 20 PP players in the league
i mean Drouin and Galchenyuk together that 1 year put on a good effort but that's it .

outside that you're looking a 10-20 points from 2-3 players and everyone chipping in .
not since Souray and Kovalev have we had 2 players put up 35-45 points on PP alone .

Kovalchuk isnt the solution but he does shoot a lot and the guys we're using are less skilled goal scorers and more blue collar goal scorers like Danault , Gallagher , Domi and Armia .

Suzuki's and Kovalchuk together took over our PP which gave him an extra 4-6 minutes a night the way we draw penalties.
no playoff team is in a position to let him just walk right in and take of top PP unit .

i think if you're a contender and you want a guy for a cup run you gotta look at MTL's most versatile forward in Lehkonen .
he's not a 30 goal scorer but he scorers in high risk area's and create's a lot of rebounds he'll often forecheck to retrieve and redistribute.

not saying we'd part with him as since day 1 he's been Claude Juliens guy (literally the only player claude said positive things about for like the first month he was here and has never stopped)
but our best player to walk into a middle 6 role while having an impact on special teams has to be Lehkonen as no matter who he plays with or how much they juggle him he never gets worse , those around him get better .

Always felt bad for Lehkonen as he was just 2 picks in either direction from being drafted to a Stanley Cup Champion
instead he'll waste all his best year here like Price before being pushed out

If Malkin wanted Kovalchuk on the team Rutherford would have signed him when he was available. Malkin didn't want him on the team though (see: Kessel)