NEWS BY DIVISION
- Sizing up the ‘Yotes deadline haul Pacific
- Flames finally lighting the lamp Northwest
- That's the Pitts: Crosby booed by home 'fans' Atlantic
- Thomas gets second chance in net Northeast
- Hurricanes are wheeling, dealing – and contending Southeast
- Central balance of power remains the same Central
COLUMNS
- Picking up the pieces of USA-Canada Justin Bourne
- Beyond the trapezoid: A look at Olympic rules Justin Bourne
- Ah, skill day at the rink Justin Bourne
| Devils win Kovalchuk sweepstakes |
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| Headlines |
| Written by J.P. Hoornstra |
| Thursday, February 04, 2010 00:00 |
 Midseason trades involving the game's marquee goal-scorers are rare. When one goes to the New Jersey Devils, it's downright historic. There are no shortage of adjectives to describe Thursday's blockbuster trade that sent Ily Kovalchuk and former Devils defenseman Anssi Samlemafrom from Atlanta to New Jersey for defenseman Johnny Oduya, rookie forward Niclas Bergfors, junior prospect Patrice Cormier and a first-round draft pick this year. The teams also swapped second-round draft picks this year. "We felt Kovalchuk was a player who could come and fill the need that we felt we had for an explosive scorer and someone who could add a different dimension to our power play with the type of shot," New Jersey Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello told the Associated Press. "Then it was just the case of trying to make it work some how where we could not sacrifice tomorrow." Kovalchuk, who becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1, said as recently as Thursday morning that he might still sign his contract with Atlanta. "Hey, you never know," he told reporters. That possibility evaporated during the afternoon, as Waddell appears to have found a trading partner.
A Thrasher for his entire eight-year career, Kovalchuk told reporters that "I like everything here. It's a great city. The organization did everything for me." In 594 career games, he has scored 328 goals and 615 points. "This wasn't an easy deal to make," Atlanta general manager Don Waddell said Thursday night. "Ilya Kovalchuk has been with us for eight years. He's been the face of our franchise and done so many good things for us, on and off the ice." He has the second-most goals in the NHL since the 2004-05 lockout, trailing only Washington's Alexander Ovechkin. He ranks sixth in points, with 410 in 367 games. Earlier in the day, Waddell issued a statement saying that the team had essentially given up trying to sign the impending free agent: Our goal from the start of this negotiating process was to sign Ilya Kovalchuk to a long-term contract. During the process, Kovy affirmed his desire to be a Thrasher for life. We’ve spent several months exploring scenarios with Kovy and his agent to reach a mutually beneficial agreement, and offered many lucrative packages in an attempt to meet his financial objectives. Unfortunately, we’ve reached an impasse and at this point he has declined all of our proposals and we can’t reasonably go any higher. Ultimately, we offered Kovy more than $101 million over 12 years, which would have been the highest contract signed by an impending unrestricted free agent in the history of the league. If accepted, this contract would have been the second highest offer ever to any NHL player. We also met his desire to be the highest paid player based on average annual salary with a separate offer of 7 years at $10M per year ($70M). This offer is $0.5M higher per year than any other player. If we went beyond these offers, we would not be able to retain the young players on our roster when it came time to sign them, or invest in other top tier players needed to assemble a truly competitive team. Therefore, we are aggressively exploring all of our options as we move forward. |
