BY SAM HITCHCOCK

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

COMMENTARY

For New Jersey Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello, life is great right now. David Clarkson is getting long overdue plaudits for turning into an archetypal power forward. Head coach Peter DeBoer is on the short list of Jack Adams candidates for best coach in the NHL. Martin Brodeur is getting his share of appreciation commentary for a player who, at almost 41, continues to defy Father Time. And the Devils’ home attendance is at 98.2 percent for filling up their arena, a sharp spike from the 87.4 percent that they had at the Prudential Center last year.

Certainly Lou deserves a ton of credit. But what is getting lost in the New Jersey Devils’ Eastern Conference first-place start is that Ilya Kovalchuk may be the most valuable player to his team.

I’m not saying he is going to win the Hart Trophy this year, but if he continues to play like this, he deserves it. And Lou’s highly publicized procurement of him turns out to be one of the biggest acquisitions on the NHL landscape in recent memory.

Consider that, in Thursday’s 3-2 win over the Washington Capitals, Kovy played two cents under 29 minutes. TWENTY-NINE MINUTES! That is half the game! He practically never left the ice, and when he was playing, he was dominating. His game-winning goal came on a one-timer pass from Patrik Elias in the third period, a shot so hard and so perfectly placed that goaltender Braden Holtby seemed resigned to conceding the go-ahead goal.

And that’s just one example of brilliance from his first 17 games (Kovy also scored the overtime winner the first time the Devils played the Capitals). Here are performance evaluations on a few individual Devils and the team as a whole so far, as well as the same for the New York Rangers and New York Islanders.

Kovy MVP Case

Going into this season, I (along with many others) was skeptical about the Devils’ chances for further postseason success. I felt that last season Zach Parise was given more credit than he was properly due; Kovy was clearly the Devils’ best player, but No. 9 was getting the most effusive praise. Parise had tremendous work ethic and leadership ability, but Kovy’s skill set had a more tangible effect on the outcome of the game each night.

When Parise left for Minnesota this offseason, it left a clear void in the Devils’ roster. And the Devils’ biggest summer move was the acquisition of Bobby Butler, a player the Ottawa Senators bought out so that he could be moved.

Those worries were augmented when Adam Henrique had his thumb surgery and DeBoer announced that the Devils’ fourth line would be getting promoted to third line. But here we are, a third of the season through, and the Devils have persevered.

Elias and Clarkson are playing above expectations, but the shining star is Kovy. He is playing 26:03 a night. He is a +4 plus/minus (and while that traditional statistic is being shown to be very flawed, it seems worth mentioning since he has been in the red for nearly his entire career).

Kovy has been able to stabilize the Devils offense despite Henrique’s early absence, and currently with Dainus Zubrus’s wrist surgery. The Devils’ roster is not exactly brimming with talent; in fact, Lamoriello picked up a lot of these guys off the proverbial scrap heap, and in trades where he dealt very low-round draft picks for teams’ persona non gratae.

Steve Bernier was acquired after being waived by the Florida Panthers. Ryan Carter was also claimed after being waived by the Florida Panthers. Krys Barch was the third member of the Devils’ four lines who was signed after not being retained by the Panthers. Newly acquired Andrei Loktionov (who scored the tying goal against the Capitals on Thursday) was claimed when the Devils sent the Los Angeles Kings a fifth-round pick. Left winger Alexei Ponikarovsky was reacquired by the Devils in a trade that sent the Winnipeg Jets a seventh-round pick in 2013 and fourth-round pick in 2014. Despite the aforementioned Butler being 25 years old, the final year of his contract was bought out by the Senators. Stephen Gionta played 13 total NHL games before this season, and he is 29. Now these guys are all getting major minutes for the Devils!

But it works -- and the constant variable is Kovy. He is the straw that mixes the drink, because even on a roster filled with miscasts, every player looks much more capable when playing with such a superior talent.

No. 17 has a missile for a shot, displays impeccable stickhandling, and his explosiveness with and without the puck is unmatched. There is still a vestigial feel around NHL circles of those who refuse to see the transformation from the individualistic, one-on-one game he played in Atlanta – but those days are gone. Long gone.

Kovy is a three zones’ player now. His seasoning is peaking (like Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours rule, he literally looks like he has played so much hockey in his life by now that he is an ice cognoscenti who could play puck in his sleep), and his improved all-around game has heightened his hockey sense and already adept anticipation. He is one of the toughest competitors in the NHL, and his non-existent fatigue has become so astonishing that he may have a heart the size of a giraffe.

Kovy and his teammates, to their credit, have a relentless work ethic. Even though conventional logic says you need six to eight guys who can score, and that depth in a truncated season is even more paramount, Kovy defies reason. He is a transcendent player at the apex of his ability, and nightly a privilege to watch.

Rangers Attempt to Overcome Ripples

The Rangers are last in the NHL in power play. Henrik Lundqvist has been good, but not played up to his Vezina form from last year. The postseason fireworks that Chris Krieder provided have not translated into regular season success. The Blueshirts have already suffered injuries to Dan Girardi, Ryan Callahan, and Rick Nash, and while these players only missed a few games, their absences are magnified in a shortened season.

But for me personally, the smoking gun with the Rangers’ lack of success is the descending play of Marian Gaborik and Brad Richards. Both players are paid top-dollar, command twenty minutes of ice time a game, and so far their output has been granular. Gaborik has no power play goals this season. He has only scored in four different games. He is getting a lot of touches, a lot of scoring chances, and has not been converting.

Here are a few notable examples of Gabby’s recent ineptitude. The Rangers run a play from their goal line where the D-man flings a long stretch pass from behind the net to Richards, who one-touches it to Gaborik or his linemate. Against the Boston Bruins on January 23rd, this ended in a goal, with Nash sending a deft pass over to Gabby. But against the Capitals on Sunday, Gaborik was able to walk into the zone with speed, uncontested, and shoot it from the top of the right circle – right in Holtby’s chest.

In that same game, with 10:45 left in the third period, Gaborik got a 2-on-1 after Washington D-man Tom Poti misplayed an airborn puck. Gaborik was given the clear shooting lane as Jeff Schultz decided to blanket Callahan cutting to the back door and let Holtby take the shooter. Gaborik decided to pass on the wide-open shot opportunity, passing it from the left circle to the well-covered Callahan. Gaborik was bailed out on a phantom penalty call on Schultz, but that belies the bigger point. He is a seven-time 30-goal scorer who is getting big-minutes to score goals. Anywhere around the circles he should be shooting without hesitation.

This was clearly a bad game for him (he also missed an open net), but Gaborik’s lack of finishing has been plaguing the Rangers all season. Gaborik is a scorer, and does not put much of a premium on areas of the ice other than the offensive zone. When he lacks the ability to pot goals on a nightly basis and fails to set up his teammates (only four assists), his utility comes into question.

Richards, on the other hand, has never been a high-octane forward. He is a puck-possession playmaker who uses his hockey sense and vision to create space for himself and teammates. But thus far he has been incapable of scoring. While he has never scored goals at a high clip, his record has consistently been better than one goal every eight games (and anyone who thinks that is nitpicking should consider that half of the Rangers games played so far have been decided by a goal or shootout). He has nine assists so far, which is passable, but his tenure as quarterback on the power play has been a disaster. Recently, Derek Stepan has been introduced as a key cog in the high slot, an outcome of Richards’ failure.

The most troubling omen for both Richards and Gaborik is that 24-year-old Carl Hagelin has looked better than either of them in many games this year. The speedster is chasing the puck, going to the net and dirty areas, and creating havoc on the forecheck. With Gaborik at the age of 31 and Richards 32, part of me wonders whether, with the professional game trending younger and younger, both men have passed their expiration dates and are on the decline in their careers.

The Young Men and the Sea

I could easily make this another smooching section in praise of John Tavares, because, like Kovy, he is a tremendous player carrying a Herculean load. But here are two interesting case studies on players drafted with high potential and upside who have failed to live up to their expectations to date. These two players are the seventh overall pick in 2006’s NHL draft, Kyle Okposo, and the ninth overall pick in 2008’s draft, Josh Bailey.

Okposo is a very intriguing player because he is built like a freight train, has very natural skating ability, and possesses good stick skills; nevertheless, he has underwhelmed in the first act. The most goals he has ever scored were 24 (last year). So far in the 2013 season, he has one. The Isles have had some deserved blame for poorly projecting prospects (see Nino Niederreiter), but Okposo was highly thought of coming into the ’06 draft. This is a failure of the developmental process by the Long Island franchise.

Okposo plays too frenzied, and is often out of control despite obvious skating ability. There is also a serious question of his conditioning. He is listed at 212, but whatever his weight actually is, he needs to control it. He often looks gassed 15-20 seconds into a shift, and his failure as a backchecker has hurt the Islanders defense many times. (If Okposo gets caught deep in the offensive zone and there is a turnover, don’t count on seeing him appear on your television screen in the defensive zone for awhile.)

At the young age of 24, he still possesses the high first-round talent that got him drafted in the top ten, but someone needs to channel it properly. He also takes horrific penalties, penalties so bad that you could call them from the nosebleed section. Still, beneath the veneer of a badly conditioned penalty-taker is above-the-cut talent.

On the Islanders’ sole goal against Ottawa Tuesday, Okposo worked tirelessly below the goal line, fighting along the boards and pushing the puck towards his defense at the point and linemates in the slot. In fact, it resembled what Clarkson does for the Devils, which is unquestionably the ceiling someone needs to find and tap with Okposo. He has the build and tools to be a consistent power forward who grinds in the corners and uses his size and strength to create scoring. Someone just needs to extract it.

When I watch Josh Bailey my reaction is the same as when I see a story about Shia LaBeouf, “Man he was such a sweet kid, what happened to him?” Fortunately in Bailey’s case, he doesn’t appear to be an egotistical prima donna; he just is suffering from a major loss of confidence.

Bailey was another top ten pick, and also is capable of generating good, steady NHL point production. However, he looks completely lost and out of sync these days. He has no command, seems rattled, and the proficient scoring knack that got him drafted from the OHL seems a remote memory.

This sad assessment delineates the bigger point:  the Islanders do have pieces. They are not a wasteland, rather a reclamation project. A good coach can reactivate talent. Yes, the Islanders have goaltending issues. Agreed, they have some glaring holes in their back end top-six. No question it did not make sense to let P.A. Parenteau walk and then bring in Brad Boyes to fill his role when Boyes has the exact same game as Matt Moulson.

And poor Tavares. Parenteau was a playmaker who helped Moulson reach career highs in goals because Parenteau and Tavares fed Moulson’s only above-average skill:  offense around 5-10 feet of the goal. Without anyone else on his line who can play the other 190 feet of the ice, Tavares is assigned the thankless job of defending, controlling the neutral zone, and generating offense in the attacking zone outside that confined area.

But the Islanders do have two defenders who can contribute to the play on offense in Mark Streit and Lubomir Visnovsky. And they do have an all-situation superstar impacting the game on the offensive and defensive side of the puck, a franchise player/savior who will set the pace when he is out there, and is as good a two-way forward in the NHL as any in John Tavares. (Sorry, I promised this would be a no-smooching section for Johnny T.)

The Islanders also have a three-time 30-goal scorer in Moulson, and a speedster and assist-generator in Michael Grabner and Frans Nielsen. They have two former first-round picks in Bailey and Okposo, and the fifth overall pick in 2011 in Ryan Strome, developing in the Canadian Junior leagues. (And defenseman Travis Hamonic was a second-round pick who could definitely be slotted as top-six defenseman in a good lineup and with proper tutelage).

But they need a new voice in the locker room. They don’t compete consistently night-to-night. They have terrible spacing and play softer in front of the net than any team in the NHL. They don’t just take bad line changes, they take lazy line changes -- the kind that happen when a forward chooses to change on a 3-on-3 opposing rush rather than backcheck to neutralize and make it a 3-on-4.

This means the player is putting his individual fatigue ahead of the team. Jack Capuano needs to go. This was a proud franchise that won four consecutive Stanley cups in the early 1980’s. They are not some woebegone club even if it appears like that because of their lack of success in recent years.

There is talent on this team. Now they just need a new steward to guide the tyros towards their deserving spot among the teams that annually compete for a playoff berth.