Ilya Kovalchuk Has Scored His First NHL Goal In 5 Years
Was it anything special? Not exactly. I mean it was great work by him to make eye contact with Doughty, get his ass to the net and then a great feed from Doughty to set up that deflection. But as far as Ilya Kovalchuk goals go, this one isn’t what I would consider a highlight.
HOWEVA…
The last time Ilya Kovalchuk scored a goal in the National Hockey League was on April 25th, 2013 in a 3-2 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. That was 5 years, 5 months and 15 days ago. That was 1994 days ago. Over 5 full years ago. And now here he is tonight and he’s doing it again. I don’t who it is, anybody who can take 5 years away from the NHL like that and still come back to potting pucks in the back of the net is a certified stud. 5 years. Even Jaromir Jagr didn’t take 5 years off from the NHL. He spent 3 seasons in the KHL before coming back. Kovy has been fueling up on that Russian Gas for the last 5 calendars and now he’s back to doing the damn thing. I don’t want this to be like my “Was Troy Terry The First Player To Ever Score A Shootout Game Winner In The NHL Before Scoring An Actual Goal” question from earlier but is Ilya Kovalchuk the first player in NHL history to have 5 years separating their last two goals? I have to imagine he is because if anybody else took 5 years off their career, that would probably be the end of it.
Unless some pigeon 4th liner only had a couple of goals in his career and they came 5 years apart after playing for 8 different teams during that span. But even those guys score at least every 3 years or so.