Mirtle is reporting that the Canadiens have allegedly offered Alexei Kovalev a one year, $6M contract to stay in MTL.
Just in case you didn't know, Kovalev will turn 37 in February and settled right back into his 65 point career normal pace this season after some percentages and bounces on the PP made him seem like a demi-god in 07/08. He didn't even top 2.00 ESP/60 this year and his corsi was a negative one (in fact, marginally worse than Plekanec, Lang, Higgins, Koivu, Latendresse and Andrei Kostitsyn). He was decent again with the man advantage (5.25 PPP/60) but not so mind-blowingly good that it in any way validates 6 large. He led Montreal in points but probably only he played a bunch while Lang, Koivu and Tanguay missed huge chunks of time to injury.
In short, Gainey is either truly desperate or...well, I'm not sure how else to explain this offer. Personally, I don't even know if I'd pay Kovalev half that amount.
