One of the main heroes and at the same time one of the main failures of the May World Hockey Championship entered the season quite vigorously (the Russian team started the tournament well, but then ignominiously failed it, and Ilya, in the general opinion, was involved in both). He began scoring and assisting at such a pace that North Americans, obsessed with hockey statistics, immediately calculated: Kovalchuk is ahead of the pace of the famous Wayne Gretzky, the best forward in NHL history. True, to break the Great One's record, he would have to keep up the pace for at least eighty games of the regular season. You understand yourself - only the most extraordinary personalities can do such a thing.
But the product of Moscow's Spartak only laughed at his ill-wishers for a long time. He became the best player in the NHL for one week, then another, then won the monthly contest. The Russian press never ceased to admire the young compatriot, praising Ilya in every way, who had to bear double responsibility as one of Atlanta's leaders: the second one, Canadian hero of the 2003 World Championship Dany Heatley, was in a car accident and is on the sick list.
A little more than a month has passed since the start of the season. Kovalchuk, although he conceded first place in the list of top scorers, still holds a very high position, sharing third and fourth places in the ranking with Slovak Zigmund Palffy and trailing only Alex Tanguay and Robert Lang by three and one points respectively.
But in the list of top snipers, Kovalchuk is the clear leader, with 13 goals in 19 matches. His closest pursuers - Milan Hejduk, Bill Guerin and Mariusz Czerkawski - have scored two fewer.
Today Ilya is identified with the future of Russian hockey. Kovalchuk is considered one of the first swallows of the new wave, and Nikolai Zherdev (incidentally, a former Kyivite) and Alexander Ovechkin are inclined to be considered his no less successful successors in Russia.
But now our fans of the fastest game in the world have other idols - the ageless Alexander Mogilny, scoring again for Toronto, Alexei Yashin, Sergei Fedorov and Vyacheslav Kozlov, who are key players in their teams - the Islanders, Anaheim and Atlanta. Dainius Zubrus, a product of Ukrainian hockey and a native of Lithuania, started the current season well, as did Russians Oleg Kvasha and Pavel Datsyuk; Sergei Samsonov, one of the most talented teenagers of the mid-90s, reminded of himself again. Defensemen Sergei Gonchar (the best scorer among NHL defensemen), Sergei Zubov and Sandis Ozolinsh are not slowing down and continue to actively help their partners on offense. Nikolai Khabibulin and Evgeni Nabokov are reliable in goal.
In short, our hockey is not in the backwaters even at the world exhibition of talents that is the NHL. But one 'but' is starting to worry us. The potential of our legionnaires is, of course, enormous, but not unlimited. Almost every tenth player in the League comes from the republics of the former USSR, and this number is annually replenished with new personnel. But are the replacements of high quality? Will the newcomers - for example, Pavel Vorobyov, Sergei Zinovyev, Maxim Kondratyev or Konstantin Koltsov - become the new Fedorovs, Mogilnys, Bures, Yashins, Gonchars, Zubovs, Fetisovs and Larionovs? If we rely on the example of Kovalchuk, we think they will. If we take as a basis the dozens of our guys who never established themselves in the NHL, great doubts arise.