Kovalchuk Silly To Retire

Devils winger Ilya Kovalchuk decided to retire at age 30 in the middle of a contract with the Devils. I really believe he is making a mistake. I'm not writing this to say that he's dumb to leave all the money on the table, as he is walking away from 12 years and $77 million. I think he let down the Devils organization. He really hung them out to dry and as a Devils fan I think what he did was selfish. If he knew he was going to go back to Russia I don't get why he couldn't tell the team right when the season ended. Now all the best free agents have already signed. He is still one of the best players in the world and I think he made a mistake. There is nothing like the NHL. The Stanley Cup is the best trophy in the entire world. Also, he says he has been considering this for a long time. So basically he cost us our 2 best players from our run to the cup a few years ago. The huge contract we gave him should've been given to Zach Parise, who is not only a better player than Kovalchuk, but he would never put the Devs in a situation like Kovy did. With all this being said, I am very confident that the Devils will be fine. Now we have a ton of money to spend. We now can resign Adam Henrique. And then there's the fact that we have the best GM in hockey and arguably the best in all of sports. I have all the faith in the world in Lou Lamoriello. The Devils will be fine. We just need Henrique to come into his own and take the next step in his development. We still have Zajac, Patty Elias, and now some of our younger players will finally be given significant ice time. I wanna see what we have in guys like Tedenby and Josefson and Loktionov. Kovy will be missed, but it's a waste of time to continue to be mad about it. He let us down. That's his fault, not ours. And then we have guys like Reid Boucher and Stefan Matteau working on their games and even though they're both still likely not ready, they're not too far away. Kovy leaving is not such a bad thing for us in the long run. This season might be tough, but considering we can actually spend money now, it might be a blessing in disguise.