Ilya Kovalchuk's contract with New Jersey has been rejected by the NHL

I said I'd give more details about the NHL Ilya Kovalchuk contract rejection situation when I got them. That's exactly what I'm doing in this post.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, The contract was rejected because years of low salary were added for the sole purpose of lowering the cap hit. Neither side believed that Kovalchuk would play until the end of the 17-year contract, which would be at the end of the 2026-2027 season, when Kovalchuk would be 44.
Kovalchuk's contract would have gone abovethe 15-year deal goaltender Rick DiPietro received from the New York Islanders and double NHL MVP Alexander Ovechkin's 13-year deal with the Washington Capitals. Kovalchuk was slated to earn $6 million in each of the next two seasons,$11.5 million for the following five seasons,$10.5 million in the 2017-2018 season, 8.5 million for the 2018-2019 season, 6.5 million in 2019-2020,$3.5 million in 2020-2021, $750,000 the next season, and $550,000 for the last
5 years of the contract. The Devils would have taken in an annual salary-cap hit of
$6 million per season, which is the average amount per season.That number decreased because of the longer amount of years with low salary at the end.


It is hard to tell at the moment if Kovalchuk will sign a new contract with the New Jersey Devils. The Los Angeles Kings and the KHL in Russia were also looking to sign Kovalchuk before he reached an agreement with the New Jersey Devils two weeks into
NHL free agency.