Monday, October 26, 2009

Kovalchuk Lost For Four Weeks

A harsh blow was dealt to the Atlanta Thrashers on Monday afternoon when they learned that their captain and leading scorer, Ilya Kovalchuk, will be out of the Thrashers' line-up for upwards of four weeks. Kovalchuk suffered the injury in Saturday night's contest against the Sharks, but the bone that is broken is not a weight-bearing bone, so he may only be out of the line-up for a couple of weeks, at best.

Kovalchuk was off to a pretty good start to the season for Atlanta, scoring nine goals and one assist in the first eight games of the year. He was projected to be one of the top scorers in the league, but if he only misses the next couple of weeks, the blow to his goal-scoring total may not be too bad, especially since the Thrashers only play twice in Week Five.

ImplicationsThe loss of Kovalchuk will also impact Allan, who ranks 6th in the Draft, only 2 points out of 4th and only 4 points out of 3rd. With teams pretty close to Allan in the Draft, the loss will likely drop him down a number of spots, while he waits for his 1st round pick to return from injury.

On the Sheet, Kovalchuk is listed in Box 17, with the likes of Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin, so the impact of his injury is lessened there. No one chose Kovalchuk over those two players... no one was chosen over those two players, period.

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