Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Ilya Kovalchuk Left Behind

03/25/2019 at 6:27pm EDT

from Jon Rosen of LA Kings Insider,

Ilya Kovalchuk didn’t travel with the Kings this week. Per Rob Blake, he remained back in Southern California, where he’ll get additional on-ice work with the team’s development and skills staff at Toyota Sports Center. That often happens when a player is coming back from an injury and isn’t quite ready to travel, and Brendan Leipsic (lower-body) will also skate with the on-ice group. That doesn’t apply to Kovalchuk, who is healthy but has been held out of the lineup for three of the last four games.

On the surface, the timing seemed particularly questionable because of Kovalchuk’s comments to The Athletic and the LA Times last week disparaging the opportunity afforded by Desjardins since the coach’s November arrival, but Blake didn’t give any indication that there were ulterior motives behind the decision to keep the forward home and forcefully shot down the suggestion that it was based on any sort of punitive measure, saying, “he wants to get better.”

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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