Devils, Kovalchuk finally seal the deal

Hockey Betting Lines

09/07/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It was anything but a smooth process, but Ilya Kovalchuk and the New Jersey Devils were finally able to consummate their long summer courtship in the early morning hours this past Saturday.

Two months after hitting the open market, Kovalchuk -- this summer's most sought-after free agent -- was officially signed to a long-term deal by New Jersey after the NHL approved the most recent contract agreed upon by the Russian winger and the Devils.

Of course, Kovalchuk's initial 17-year, $102 million deal with the Devils was rejected by the league because the NHL felt that contract deliberately circumvented the salary cap. The league also took a long, hard look at the 15- year, $100 million deal that was eventually approved around 3:00 a.m. (et) on Saturday, September 4th. The contract was originally submitted to the league on August 27, but as it turns out the league and the NHL Players Association were discussing much more than Kovalchuk's prospective contract.

Along with the Kovalchuk signing, the NHL and NHLPA also announced Saturday morning that they had agreed on a new set of rules regarding contracts of five years or longer in length. Basically, the new arrangement is designed to discourage teams and players from agreeing on deals that try to extend a contract well into the player's 40s. Under the old rules, a longer contract such as Kovalchuk's 15-year deal that is slated to end when he is 42 years of age, has a smaller cap hit because the average annual salary is lower.

Kovalchuk's contract and other similar deals that came before will be grandfathered in under the old rules, while the new rules will apply to any new contract going forward.

The agreement also effectively ends the NHL's investigation into contracts like those of Vancouver's Roberto Luongo and Philadelphia's Chris Pronger. The league began investigating those deals and other contracts last month and there was speculation that the NHL was planning on voiding the older contracts if the NHL felt they deliberately circumvented the salary cap.

The NHL was right to give up its campaign against the older contracts in order to gain greater control over future deals. It never seemed possible that the league would be able to void a player like Luongo's deal and make him a free agent. The Canucks goaltender is an icon in Vancouver and it simply would have been wrong to strip the city of a beloved player simply due to a legal argument. The league has a right to void contracts, but doing so retroactively would have become an extremely messy situation.

Getting back to the free agent contract at hand, we can finally talk about the impact Kovalchuk will have on the ice for the Devils this season. He began his New Jersey career last February when he was traded from Atlanta to the Garden State, but received mixed reviews during his first few months with the Devils.

Of course, the contract will have an immediate impact on New Jersey financially because the Devils will be forced to shed about $3 million from their overall team salary by the end of training camp in order to get under $59.4 million. The cap situation will be even trickier to deal with considering the Devils will have to make the necessary cuts while still adding two players to their NHL roster.

Kovalchuk is the type of rare scoring talent worth shaking up your roster for, but the big question is can the 27-year-old make the jump from goal-scorer to a proven winner. He has 338 goals in 621 career games and 10 of those came in 27 games with the Devils at the end of the 2009-10 regular season.

However, Kovalchuk's lack of playoff success has been widely discussed and some folks think a guy who has been on the winning side just once in nine career postseason contests is not worthy of taking up $6.6 million of space on the salary cap every year.

While I can see how Kovalchuk's postseason disappointments are an issue, it all seems to be blown out of proportion. Like his countryman Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals, Kovalchuk has been pegged as a highly-skilled offensive player who wilts under the pressure of the postseason. That categorization is unfair in both cases because it commits the cardinal sin of boiling down a team's successes to a single player. Certainly, guys like Ovechkin and Kovalchuk deserve more blame than their teammates when the club bows out early in the postseason, but neither player is a general manager and they can only control so much of what happens on the ice.

After all, Kovalchuk had six points (2 goals, four assists) in five games during a first-round playoff loss against Philadelphia last spring. A closer look at the series would tell you that he probably played a little worse than those statistics suggest, but he obviously wasn't unproductive or in any way a hindrance to his team beating the Flyers.

It will also be interesting to see if Kovalchuk's status as the Devils' resident superstar can take some pressure off fellow Jersey left winger Zach Parise. The 26-year-old Minnesotan notched 45 goals and 94 points in 2008-09 and followed up with a solid 38-goal, 82-point campaign last season, Having a top-flight scoring threat on each of their top-two lines for an entire season will almost certainly make the Devils more consistent on offense than they have been in recent years.

In fact, part of the reason Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello wanted Kovalchuk so badly is that the legendary GM is looking towards a near future without goaltender Martin Brodeur, who at 38 years of age is winding down a Hall-of-Fame career. With Brodeur as the centerpiece for the last two decades, Lamoriello and the Devils were able to claim three Stanley Cup titles by playing an effective, if not exciting, brand of defensive hockey.

However, with Brodeur nearing 40 years of age, the Devils are preparing for the departure of their franchise netminder. It's possible that Brodeur still has a few good years left, after all he went 45-25-6 with a 2.24 goals-against average last, but it's clear he is closer to the end of his career than the beginning.

Also, the hiring of head coach John MacLean, who is expected to bring a more offensive style of play to the Devils, is a clear departure from Lamoriello's strategy to bring Jacques Lemaire back into the fold as the club's head coach last season. Lemaire is regarded one of the best defensive minds of his generation, but his second tour of duty with the Devils fell flat.

If MacLean can get the Devils to become an offense-first kind of club, it will be with Kovalchuk and Parise leading the way. Perhaps, MacLean's hiring was even part of Lamoriello's master plan to lure Kovalchuk into making Newark his permanent hockey home.

It's unlikely that Lou and the Devils will completely abandon their neutral- zone trapping ways, but it's obvious that the makeup of New Jersey hockey is being tweaked.

Brodeur is not gone yet, but for better or worse, Kovalchuk is now the new face of the Devils.

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MySportsbook.com week 1 NFL lines


Now that the 2008 NFL schedule is finally out, it is only matter-of-course for lines on “Week 1” to follow.  Of course MySportsbook.com is the first to churn out odds for the NFL’s inaugural week for the upcoming season.   Expect a lot of fireworks the first Thursday night of the season as the defending champion Indianapolis Colts face off against the surprise of the 2008 season, the New Orleans Saints.  These teams were ranked #1 and #3 in the NFL respectively a season ago so a high scoring affair could be in order.  As of now, the Colts will be giving 6 points to the Saints; keep in mind the Saints were one of the better road teams last season going 6-3 SU and 7-2 ATS.  The first Monday night of the season will again provide a “double feature”. Coming off a disappointing season, the Cincinnati Bengals will look to get back to playoffs and improve their public image as they take on the AFC North favorite Baltimore Ravens.  The second game features a couple of teams that haven’t had too much success recently but each could make some noise if the NFC is as weak as it was last year as the San Francisco 49ers host the Arizona Cardinals. The most interesting game of the opening week will feature the NFC champion Bears as they hit the road to take on the NFL’s top team during last year’s regular season, the San Diego Chargers.

MySportsbook.com Week 1 odds:

Saints +6 @ Colts -6

Falcons @ Vikings (pick ‘em)

Panthers @ Rams (pick ‘em)

Broncos -3.5 @ Bills +3.5

Chiefs -1 @ Texans +1

Dolphins +3 @ Redskins -3

Patriots -5 @ Jets +5

Eagles -3.5 @ Packers +3.5

Steelers -4 @ Browns +4

Titans +6 @ Jaguars -6

Bears +6 @ Chargers -6

Lions +3 @ Raiders -3

Bucs +6.5 @ Seahawks -6.5

Giants +4 @ Cowboys -4

Ravens +3 @ Bengals -3

Cardinals +3 @ 49ers -3

 Super Bowl line (2008)

NFC +6.5 vs. AFC -6.5

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2007 online football betting Preview

My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."

The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.

To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.

However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.

Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.

Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.

Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.

2007 College Football Betting Preview

There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.

The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.

So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.

USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.

USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.

Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.

That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.

The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"

The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.

Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.

Las Vegas Sports Lines

The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.

It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."

The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.

The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.

Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.

After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.

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