No decision on Kovalchuk contract today, one NHL GM sounds off on it

Ilya Kovalchuk of the New Jersey Devils poses for photographs during a media opportunity announcing his contract renewal at the Prudential Center on July 20, 2010 in Newark, New Jersey.

Bruce Bennett

The news on Ilya Kovalchuk and his latest contract with the Devils is... That there’s no news at all. The NHL has a deadline of 5 pm tomorrow afternoon to decide whether or not to approve the apparent 15-year, $100 million contract between the Devils and Kovalchuk. If the league fails to make a decision by then, the contract will be deemed accepted, but don’t get too excited thinking that will happen.

As for what other GMs in the NHL are thinking about this whole process, TSN’s Darren Dreger got to the bottom of things and found out that some executives still aren’t pleased with this contract.

Without knowing the specifics of the contract rival managers are left to consider the speculation that reports Kovalchuk’s latest contract offer to be in the range of 15 years and $100 million.

One NHL general manager doesn’t believe for a second the league will allow this one to pass either, stating Lou Lamoriello, the Devils and Ilya Kovalchuk are simply trying to “disguise circumvention,” adding, “trying to hide the crime, makes this even worse.”

When we took a look at this contract before, we noted that knocking off two years and $2 million seemed like a very slight change to the original 17-year, $102 million deal and that if the new deal was approved, the entire battle over this comes off as petty and mere wrist-slapping as far as setting the tone for future long-term, big-money contracts. The fact that at least one NHL executive (I don’t suppose that might be noted cap-busting contract opponent Brian Burke, would it?) has sounded off firmly on this could mean there are others that subscribe to this theory.

This leads you to think that maybe the NHL will again deny the Devils and Kovalchuk and bring us back to square one all over again and reinvigorate discussion of Kovalchuk perhaps going to Russia. We’ll know more by 5 o’clock tomorrow afternoon at the latest.