Thrashers.Today.Com

By Bud L. Ellis
thrashers.today.com

ATLANTA – When all is said and done, his name will rank up there with the greatest athletes to ever play in this city.

Think about that for a second. Hank Aaron. Phil Niekro. Tom Glavine. Dominique Wilkins. Jeff Van Note. That’s pretty good company, for sure.

And yet, one can’t help but wonder if his stay in Atlanta is drawing to a close.

Ilya Kovalchuk is among the very best on the planet. The numbers back up that statement: 52 goals scored last season, second in the NHL, the second time in three seasons he’s lit the lamp 50 times or more.

The progression of his play backs up that statement: Once solely focused on offense, Kovy raised his defensive game last season, becoming more physical and more intent on playing at both ends of the rink.

The sheer sight of him in action backs up that statement: Kovy taking the puck as his blue line and racing ahead toward the offensive zone, his rocket slapshot from the point, his moves toward the net on a breakaway, all back up the same hypothesis.

Dude is awesome. End of story.

Arguably, nobody bore the frustration of last season’s disastrous sink in the standings more than Kovy. He scored three goals in the first six games, but Atlanta lost all six and head coach Bob Hartley lost his job as a result. Back-to-back hat tricks to open November – a month during which Kovy scored 14 times in 12 games – gave a brief glimmer of hope to a campaign that for Atlanta soured again as 2007 turned into 2008.

You could see it in his eyes, time and time again. The losses kept piling up. The feel-good aura that swept this city in 2006-07 was gone with the wind, and Kovy found himself more often than not trying to do it all by himself.

Any observer knows the Thrashers face the beginning of the most critical season in their existence this fall. Atlanta simply must rebound from last season’s plunge toward the bottom of the Eastern Conference, or else this time next season, we’re going to have the mother of all distractions on our hands.

Kovy is under contract through the 2009-10 season. If the Thrashers muddle through another season of lost hope and unrealized expectations, then it’s natural to assume Kovy may be on his way out come the summer of 2010. And losing a mega-star in the prime of his career would be the biggest blow yet to a franchise that has suffered plenty since beginning play nine years ago.

Kovy will score his 50 goals. He’ll continue to improve on the defensive end. He’ll make us stand up, scream and say, “did you see THAT?!” again and again.

But it’s also safe to assume if the Thrashers don’t work their way up toward the upper reaches of the East this season, we’ll be faced with one of the best athletes in Atlanta history becoming history come 2010. And the only thing worse than that would happen a few months later, when Kovy skates into Philips Arena wearing somebody else’s sweater.

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