Some people like THN.com's Josh Elliott speculate that since the value of the ruble has plummeted, Kovalchuk and a few others players might be looking to escape the uncertainty. They may feel more secure in knowing they have jobs and while earning more money.

Others just look at the rules that would allow or restrict Kovalchuk's return which are also noted in Johnston's article. Basically, he can return as an unrestricted player once he turns 35, or he can take a year off from any type of hockey and then seek to return as a New Jersey Devil (or be granted by the Devils for permission to play with another NHL club), or try to sign with any other club and get approval from all 30 teams.

It is all rather complex. Not by the individual rules, but just by all the circumstances that need to fall into place.

Then on March 25, Johnson follows up on the topic with his article "KHL denies Ilya Kovalchuk to NHL rumors". The KHL did exactly what was expected and denied the rumor was even true, but what I found funny was that Kovalchuk's mother claimed that all this was "nonsense".

Sounds exactly like when you were a kid and wanted to get a ball hockey game started. You would get a handful of guys and need one or two more to have enough for a game so you would knock on a few more doors. Kovalchuk would be the one guy where his mom would scold the group saying "Ilya is busy. Go find someone else to play with," then slam the door shut.

What a party pooper!

The reality is that this speculation had been going on even before the falling value of his current contract. I would not recommend you taking a chance on reserving him in your keeper leagues, with one exception. The exception being, if the NHL decides to expand by 2016-17.

The talk of expansion has been around for a while and has been gaining more momentum ever since Las Vegas' Bill Foley started up a ticket drive campaign. Darren Dreger of TSN.ca writes a follow up article on the progress for the potential NHL owner. In summary, it seems to be going well.

In that article he mentions that the arena is expected to be ready around April 2016. The AEG arena website also states that it plans to be open in April of 2016.

Now most of us have done the math and know that the Western Conference is short two teams when compared to the Eastern Conference. If Las Vegas were to be granted an expansion team, then there will probably also be a second team. Most people think that team will be in Seattle.

I, however, think that if the NHL decides to expand, it will grow not by two teams but by six.

Yes, six! I will explain why a bit later on.

Two expansion teams will be in the East, those being Quebec City and a second team in Toronto. Four expansion teams will be in the West.

This Wikipedia article highlights the frontrunners, but there are eleven potential candidates. Las Vegas, Seattle, San Antonio, Kansas City, Oakland, San Diego, Houston, Oklahoma City, Salt Lake City and Portland.

What is interesting to note is that the first six cities on my list all have arenas built or being built by AEG. Go to the general AEG arena webpage and sort the location by North America.

More interesting to note, there are four current teams that have their arenas being managed by AEG: the New York Islanders (Barclay's Center), New Jersey (Prudential Center), Pittsburgh Penguins (CONSOL Energy Center) and Los Angeles (Staples Center).

It doesn't mean that all the West expansion teams would go to AEG cities, but they will exert pressure indirectly to have expansion.

Now why six instead of two expansion teams?

Well, if there were 36 teams in total, you could have four divisions of nine teams each with the top three in each division making the playoffs and then next best two teams per conference entering as wild cards.

But you could instead have six divisions of six teams each (three divisions in each conference). With the top two teams in each division earning a playoff spot and then next best two in each conference earning wild card spots. A smaller number of teams per division means that you would breed familiarity and rivalries too.

This is where Ilya and the rest of the KHL players come into play. If the NHL were to be that aggressive in expansion, they will need players. Sure, some of them will be coming from the junior ranks and the AHL or other European leagues, but the single source of higher end talent currently is the KHL.

I very much doubt that the current NHL owners would look to prohibit Ilya from playing on one of those expansion teams.

In the early 1970s, the NHL expanded. In the late 1970s, the NHL absorbed four WHA franchises. It was after all that expansion that we experienced all that magnificent scoring in the 1980s.

Sure some teams moved around to other cities. I am not saying that there wouldn't be difficulties. It certainly would make things interesting though.

For his part, Ilya did great being the top guy in Atlanta. He could find a way to do the same thing again in the future while safely expanding his bank account.

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