The Thrashers and the Ewing (Kovalchuk?) Theory

I never read Bill Simmons's column on ESPN.com, if at all, until I met my friend Joe Rauch back in 2007. Maybe this had something to do with the fact that Joe is a big NBA fan and I've always followed hockey a lot more than I do the NBA, which seems to be Simmons' favorite league to write about. (It also might have something to do with my aversion to Simmons' initial "Boston Sports Guy" persona, seeing as I was a fan of New York sports teams -- owing to my birth in that city and my father's rooting for New York teams -- even while growing up in Massachusetts.)

So it was Joe who first mentioned to me Simmons' "Ewing Theory."Actually, Simmons credits his friend Dave Cirilli with inventing the theory, but I'd say that Simmons is probably a little bit better known. Simply elucidated, the theory states that college and pro superstar Patrick Ewing's teams always played better without him -- a truism for almost all superstar-dominated teams.

I started thinking about how this might apply to the Atlanta Thrashers after they defeated the Florida Panthers 4-2 on Tuesday to go 3-1-2 since trading Ilya Kovalchuk. Could it be that the Thrashers will be better without the best player in franchise history than they were with him?

Remember, it's just a theory, not a law. But the more I started looking at Simmons and Cirilli's theory, the more I found how well it suited the Thrashers. Two crucial elements must be in order for the theory to apply. They are (and I'm excerpting now):

1. A star athlete receives an inordinate amount of media attention and fan interest, and yet his teams never win anything substantial with him (other than maybe some early-round playoff series).
2. That same athlete leaves his team (either by injury, trade, graduation, free agency or retirement) -- and both the media and fans immediately write off the team for the following season.

This is the 2009-10 Thrashers in a nutshell. The way Simmons describes the theory, the season doesn't necessarily have to be the following one. His prime example is that of the 1999 NBA Eastern Conference finals when Ewing went down with a torn Achilles tendon in Game 2. The Knicks won three of the next four games to win the series against the Indiana Pacers after the Knicks had been written off. Another example includes the Tennessee Volunteers when they won the 1998 NCAA football title the year after Peyton Manning graduated without ever having done so.

The central point of the Ewing Theory is that when teams have a superstar, the rest of the players tend to stand by passively as bystanders waiting for said superstar to do his thing. I first started thinking about this in relation to the Thrashers when I wrote a story for NHL.com last week about the state of the team coming out of the Olympic break.

Forward Jim Slater, who played on the same teams as Kovalchuk for five seasons, said of Kovalchuk, "Maybe we relied too much" on him. Goalie Johan Hedberg agreed. Coach John Anderson basically did also.

In some ways, it's a case study on different methods of how to build a team. Shortly after the Thrashers traded Dany Heatley in 2005, a player said to me, "Now they just need to get rid of the other guy" -- the other guy, obviously, being Kovalchuk. A philosophical debate ensued about whether it's easier to win with a team built around superstars or one built, in this player's words, with a team of all $2 million players, a salary about 33 percent above the NHL average at the time.

At times when I have searched my mind to find successful examples of the mythical team of $2 million players, I end up settling on the 2006 Carolina Hurricanes who won the Stanley Cup -- lots of above average players who meshed together flawlessly. Of course, the team of $2 million players is an impossibility -- an ideal, really -- that would necessarily have to have some exceptions to exist in the real world. For the '06 'Canes, Eric Staal, one of the NHL's top forwards, and Rod Brind'Amour would represent two of those exceptions. But a look back at the team's defense would hardly reveal greatness. Bret Hedican was the 'Canes' No. 1 that year. Aging Glen Wesley, Frantisek Kaberle, Anton Babchuk, Niclas Wallin, Aaron Ward hardly represent as a collective anything near the backline of the great Montreal Canadiens of the 1970s.

That Carolina team rolled four lines and got contributions from everywhere. In their very brief run of success thus far without Kovalchuk, the Thrashers are doing the same. Defensemen like Pavel Kubina are scoring. Two forward lines are scoring (Evander Kane-Slater-Colby Armstrong, which was why Armstrong was not traded at the deadline; and Bryan Little-Nik Antropov-Niclas Bergfors), as is the power play.

If the Thrashers can maintain this level of play, they will have a better than average chance to make the playoffs. They hold three games in hand on seventh-place Montreal, which they trail by two points; and stand one point behind the New York Rangers, who are tied for eighth with Boston, while holding two games in hand on the Rangers.

The Thrashers also have a favorable schedule with 13 of their remaining 21 games at home. They are getting solid goaltending from Hedberg and, for the first time in their history, the strength of the team is its defense.

If they make it, another chapter could be written in the history of the Ewing Theory. Maybe hockey fans will come to call it "The Kovalchuk Theory."

Kovalchuk's Most Memorable Moments

As it appears that Ilya Kovalchuk's remarkable tenure with the Atlanta Thrashers is about to end in the coming days, I thought I would write about the 10 moments that were the most memorable to me. This is not a "best goals" list. If you're looking for that, here's a pretty good one on YouTube.

I've been in Atlanta for Kovalchuk's entire career and, in one capacity or another -- back-up writer, beat writer, free-lancer for The Sporting News and NHL.com -- I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly of the mercurial Russian's career. As captain of the Thrashers, the soon-to-be 27-year-old winger has widely been credited throughout the league with refraining from the shenanigans that earned him a reputation early in his career for being a hot-head and a showman. There was the time when he threw a broken stick into the stands in frustration in 2005 after no penalty was called for what he thought was a slash and he received a one-game suspension and the time when he was late to a morning skate in New Jersey after he missed the team bus and coach Bob Hartley held him out of the game. Kovalchuk blamed the cab driver for getting lost. One of my favorite lines about Kovalchuk was written by Sports Illustrated's Michael Farber, winner of the distinguished Elmer Ferguson Award, "The question is, Which will be more entertaining: watching Kovalchuk score 50 goals or watching him celebrate 50 times?"

Kovalchuk doesn't quite celebrate like that much any more, but I remember coming back from a road trip in 2006 and bringing with me a copy of The Washington Post that showed a photo of him leaping into the boards after celebrating a goal just to remind myself how exciting it could be to watch him play at times. You'll see times like that reflected on this list as much as the talent that should make him one of the great all-time goal-scorers in NHL history.

No. 10: Benched Before the All-Star Game

Kovalchuk was voted a starter for the Eastern Conference for the 2004 All-Star Game in St. Paul and in the Thrashers' last game before the break he committed a typical turnover with 5:31 into the second period that turned a 1-0 Thrashers' lead into a 5-1 loss against Philadelphia. Kovalchuk was trying to stick-handle through three Flyers and beat his friend, defenseman Danii Markov. Markov stole the puck and turned it into an assist as the Flyers pulled away. Hartley benched Kovalchuk for the rest of the game for the mistake.

I had the night off, but was supposed to interview Kovalchuk for the All-Star story after the game. When I had to come to interview at the morning skate that day, he told me he couldn't talk because he had to take teammate Ivan Majesky to the DMV. I had to wait almost an hour after the game before he calmed down and appeared.

No. 9: The Big Stage, March 12, 2006

Making a furious bid to overcome a bad start and make the playoffs for the first time in team history, the Thrashers won some amazing games down the stretch in the spring of 2006. One of those came at Madison Square Garden -- a venue in which Kovalchuk almost always shines. The Thrashers trailed 2-0 with less than 13 minutes to go in regulation but earned a 3-2 overtime victory thanks to Kovalchuk's tying goal with less than five minutes left. The Rangers scored the first goal in that game because of a defensive lapse by Kovalchuk.

The left wing had been in Hartley's doghouse for a variety of reasons and when I approached him after the game, he gave me a gruff, "You want to talk to me now?" But here's what he said later of playing on the big stage: "It's New York City. I think everybody likes games here, but my favorite place is still A-T-L. When you play in front of your crowd, there is five times more emotions, and you draw energy from them."

No. 8: Four-Goal Game, Nov. 11, 2005

With huge expectations after signing Bobby Holik, Peter Bondra, trading for Marian Hossa and Greg de Vries, adding Scott Mellanby and Jaroslav Modry, the Thrashers got off to a dreadful start in 2005-06 after the lockout. Kovalchuk missed the first three games because of a contract dispute and got off to a bit of a slow start. But on Nov. 11, he broke out with a four-goal game at Philips Arena against the Lightning in a 5-2 win that jump-started both himself and the team towards a better showing.

No. 7: 50 Goals, April 6, 2006

With six games to go in '05-'06, the Thrashers were still in the playoff hunt but their chances were growing more desperate. They trailed at Tampa Bay when Kovalchuk netted his 50th goal with four seconds left in regulation on a bizarre bouncing shot past Sean Burke. The Thrashers lost in a shootout, missing out on a valuable point against their Southeast Division rivals who eventually beat them out for one of the East's two final playoff spots. The Thrashers missed the playoffs by two points that season, getting eliminated in their second-to-last game of the season.

No. 6: Playing in Russia During the Lockout

Probably the warmest greeting I ever received from Kovalchuk was passing him in the halls of the dingy arena in Kazan, where Kovalchuk played during the NHL lockout in 2004-05. Traveling to the Republic of Tatarstan in winter was a long way for an American reporter to go and I think he appreciated it. Unlike in the NHL where the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NHLPA states that players can only spend three hours -- on-ice or off it -- of practice at a team's practice facility, Soviet-era coaches in what was then known as Russia's Super League (today it goes by the moniker KHL or Continental Hockey League) will keep their players practicing all day. When I saw Kovalchuk, he was finishing up a basketball game that was part of the players' training regimen. Unlike older players who came through the Soviet system, Kovalchuk bristled under such methods. Here are some memorable quotes from that story:

"We're like prisoners here. Everyone knows everything around [here]. You go to some bar or restaurant and the bill directly goes to [Kazan's general] manager."

On losing a game to the former team of his coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov in which Kovalchuk committed a costly penalty: "After the game yesterday, I was enemy number one. I'm on the black list right now. The coach was dressed all black like something happened. His face is like we lost eight in a row and we're out of the playoffs."

Also, without a CBA, coaches could fine players whatever they liked. Coach Bil, as they called him, fined one player half a month's salary for having two beers on a charter flight. If the same happened to him, Kovalchuk said, "I'd be gone."

No. 5 Illegal Stick Saga

The curve on Kovalchuk's sticks blatantly broke the rules back for his first few seasons and back in 2005-06 opposing teams started to call for measurements in the hopes of catching him in the act to earn a power play. He narrowly escaped in a game against Nashville, as he threw the stick in question to the bench and assistant equipment manager Joey Guilmet ran it down the hallway to the team's locker room. When the officials compelled Guilmet to bring back the stick, he produced one that was legal and, Nashville said, had not been used.

But a few weeks later on Jan. 31 in a 5-2 loss to Buffalo, he was caught red-handed and Hartley was furious. To send Kovalchuk a message, he had him practice on the third line with Serge Aubin and Jim Slater. Kovalchuk was the first one off the ice and bolted the practice facility. Later, reached by phone, he claimed all was fine.

Said his friend Slava Kozlov, "I think he's upset. I like when Kovy's upset. He got benched a few years ago in New Jersey [the day he missed the cab to the morning skate], and the next game he scored two goals. He's going to recover quick. We're going to support him because he's part of our team."

No. 4.: Oilers are 'Morons,' Dec. 8, 2002

Despite playing a continent and a conference apart, the Thrashers and Edmonton Oilers had created a bit of a rivalry in the early '00s -- thanks, in part, again to Kovalchuk getting caught by the Oilers for using an illegal stick in Feb. 2002. Mike Comrie was the offending player who made the accusation and when the Oil visited Atlanta in December 2002, tempers flared.

Kovalchuk fought Comrie and received a two-minute unsportsmanlike penalty in the process for pulling Comrie's hair. But he saved his best for coach Craig MacTavish and the Oilers after the game. With the help of translator Pavel Strizhevsky, a Russian emigre who lived in Atlanta and free-lanced at the time for Russia Sport-Express, Kovalchuk said:

"[MacTavish] was the last one in the NHL to play without the helmet, so he probably had the last brains knocked out a long time ago."

And: "[The Oilers] were screaming at me the whole game. They were morons. They way they play is ridiculous."

No. 3: Pointing at Crosby, Jan. 6, 2006

It was the kind of move that was sure to rile the hockey gods, not to mention Don Cherry. In the rookie year of Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby, Kovalchuk wanted to show who was boss. Crosby was sent to the box for slashing Kovalchuk and 24 seconds later, Kovalchuk scored on one of his trademark one-timers. Earlier in the game they exchanged slashes and big hits. He then pointed at Crosby in the penalty box for the entire Philips Arena crowd to see. This YouTube video has gotten more than 350,000 views.

After the game, Kovalchuk offered this up: "He took those stupid penalties all the time and he's an 18-year-old kid and he can't play like this. He started yapping at his teammates."

The next night Atlanta went to Pittsburgh, where Kovalchuk was lustily booed, and won again.

No. 2: NHL All-Star Game, Jan. 27, 2008

Again demonstrating his love of the big stage, Kovalchuk put on a show for his hometown fans at Philips Arena -- though not by scoring. The Eastern Conference won the game 8-7 and Kovalchuk had two golden opportunities. Western team goalie and Russian countryman Evgeni Nabokov robbed Kovalchuk from close range with a glove save in the second period after which Kovalchuk fell on his back in mock incredulity. A few minutes later, Nabokov robbed him again on a breakaway and, again playing to the crowd, threw his stick in feigned disgust. Kovalchuk had 18 family members and friends in the stands, including his sister who made the trip from Russia. He said the experience was "unbelievable."

No. 1: Grady Hospital, Oct. 5, 2003

Almost all of the moments on this list were in public. But the one that sticks at the most for me was a private one. Thrasher Dan Snyder had of toxic shock at Grady Memorial Hospital, as a result of an infection that had entered his body from wounds suffered in a horrific car crash with Dany Heatley six days earlier. Word had gotten out among the team members and they began to gather at the hospital.

Snyder's mother LuAnn recalled seeing a very young-looking Kovalchuk weeping and not recognizing him at first. To try and console him, she said, she offered him a piece of the watch that her son was wearing at the time of the accident. The watch had been severed in several pieces by the violence of the crash. LuAnn Snyder recalled her conversation with Kovalchuk as follows: "It's going to be a hard year. You have to work hard and you have to be a leader. You have to work hard and you have to be a leader. You don't have to play for Dan, but be there for him. He said, 'Yes, I will do this and I will try. I promise.' "

Kovalchuk tied for the NHL-lead in goals that season with 41. Before the Thrashers visited the rink this past October that was built in Snyder's hometown of Elmira, Ontario, and named in Snyder's honor, Kovalchuk had this to say, "I think it's important, because Dan, he was a member of our team. He's still a member of our team. He's always going to be with us. When his name is there, it means we're there, too. For us, it's going to be a big deal to see the fans, to see the rink."

Kovalchuk, The Canadian Dollar And The Cap

As much as I think that a lot of the names surrounding potential offerings to the Atlanta Thrashers as part of a trade for Ilya Kovalchuk are nothing but speculation, I think there has been some really insightful commentary on the circumstances surrounding the negotiations. But I also think a point has been left out about where the cap could be headed.

I think two of the best this week came from Puck Daddy, who pointed out that Kovalchuk's asking price could come down if the Thrashers wait until the summer, and Craig Custance, who wrote that if the Thrashers lose Kovalchuk they will need to spend nearly $20 million just to get the salary cap floor. Both of those are extremely relevant to what the Atlanta Spirit ownership group must involve in their thinking as it negotiates.

Let's take a look at those quickly for a minute before I get to some other news items that I saw earlier in the week that the Thrashers and every other NHL team who would consider meeting Kovalchuk's demands definitely should take into account. First is the option of letting Kovalchuk hit the open market on July 1. It sounds risky -- and it is -- but Thrashers general manager Don Waddell has done it before twice with Slava Kozlov and re-signed him both times. With so many capped out and uncertain about whether the cap will go up or down, teams could get sticker shock as they contemplate making Kovalchuk the league's highest-paid player for a term possibly as long as 12 years at that much-mentioned maximum salary figure of $11.36 million per season. As a result, Kovalchuk's demands could decrease if no one wants to give him that max deal. Of course, the risks in following that path are that someone could meet that figure -- it only takes one, as they say -- or that a more attractive team with a better history of winning could knock on Kovalchuk's door and he may choose to bolt.

But it's no secret that Kovalchuk likes living and playing in Atlanta. Otherwise, he would do what Marian Hossa did and not accept any offer to force a trade. I'm not sure that anyone doubts that Kovalchuk would remain in Atlanta if ownership meets his price. After all, how many other general managers would build a team around him and take in his input in player moves, as Atlanta did in signing Nik Antropov last summer? And it's not like coach John Anderson uses the strong-arm tactics of his predecessor Bob Hartley in managing Kovalchuk. Could anyone envision Kovalchuk playing for Jacques Lemaire-type and chafing as Marian Gaborik did for all of those years? All are calculated risks on both sides of the negotiation.

But now let's look at what could happen with the cap. Larry Brooks of The New York Post reported this tidy little item on Monday that "the league is experiencing an overall two-percent decline in hockey-related revenue prior to currency conversion, after a three-percent decline in HRR last quarter." The NHL salary cap went up 0.18 percent from 2008-09 to 2009-10, only $100,000.

Bridget Wentworth of the Star-Ledger reported last May that NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly projected that the cap would decrease by about 5 percent, or $2 to $2.5 million, unless the NHLPA "wants a 5 percent inflator" -- its right as part of the collective bargaining agreement to which the league must agree, as it ultimately did. That use of the inflator, or escalator clause, kept the cap from such a decline. Last year hockey-related revenues rose 1 percent from $2.62 billion to $2.64 billion, according to Sports Business Journal.

If, at present, revenues overall are down 2 percent -- before currency conversion -- the future of the cap the next few seasons might not exactly be looking skyward, to put it modestly. Let's see what happens when currency conversion comes in. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that options traders are the most bearish on the Canadian dollar that they have been in 13 months. Canadian teams represent 20 percent of league's franchises but in terms of revenue they contribute a disproportionate share. This story that I wrote for The Sporting News two years ago shows that the Canadian teams were contributing about 28 percent of the revenue and the Canadian dollar wasn't at $0.96 then. The New York Times in December showed how the Canadian dollar went from $0.62 in 2002 to $o.96 in seven years -- a 50 percent increase -- helping the bottom line of Canadian teams and the league as a whole.

But what happens if the cycle reverses itself, as the Bloomberg story suggests? It's not like we'll go back to a situation tomorrow where the Canadian dollar goes back to $0.75, but if it did that 28 percent of revenues that Canadian teams contribute would be cut to 21 percent and that could have a major impact on the salary cap.

So what does all of this have to do with Kovalchuk's impending free agency? In the Star-Ledger story, Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke was quoted as saying the cap, in effect, has a 12-month lag time between when they compute the numbers and what the current economic reality is. So if, over the next few years, the Canadian dollar settles back into its more historic relationship with the U.S. dollar it could strangle the growth of the NHL's upper team payroll limit, currently set at $56.8 million. Even a modest decrease in the Canadian dollar over the next six months before the league computes the cap for its July 1 free agency date could make a relative impact. (Perhaps that's why Kovalchuk is pushing hard for that big number now while it's still available.) NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has long cautioned as a general theme about teams' entering into player contracts of extreme length -- those given to Philadelphia's Mike Richards, the Islanders' Rick DiPietro, the Red Wings' Henrik Zetterberg and Chicago's Marian Hossa, to name a few.

The Thrashers definitely have to have this long-term thinking reflected in their negotiations with Kovalchuk -- and so should other potential suitors.