Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Devils GM Lamoriello confident NHL will approve latest deal for Ilya Kovalchuk

Lou Lamoriello

New Jersey Devils president, CEO and general manager Lou Lamoriello talks to the media after their NHL hockey game with the Tampa Bay Lightning had to be postponed due to lighting issues Friday, Jan. 8, 2010, in Newark, N.J. (AP Photo/Bill Kostroun)

AP

While we wait to see what the NHL will do regarding the latest contract submission for Ilya Kovalchuk and the New Jersey Devils, which they’ve got up to five days to mull over, our thoughts wander over to the architect of these deals in Devils GM Lou Lamoriello. Lamoriello is feeling pretty confident about how the NHL will handle things with their latest contract for the Russian superstar as Fire & Ice’s Tom Gulitti finds out.

When I asked Lamoriello if he was confident that the league would approve this contract based on previous conceptual conversations he’s had with the league, he did not want to discuss that, but did say, “We feel good about what we submitted. I’m not going to get into anything else at all because it could be misleading or misrepresented.”

Lamoriello did not want to speculate on whether he thought the NHL would make a quick decision on approving or rejecting the contract or need the full five days it is allotted to review the contract. According to reports, the league likely won’t complete the review before Monday.

“You know as much about that as I do,” he said.

Lou is forever the wordsmith that’s for sure.

Some have questioned Lamoriello’s role in the process as both a guy who is loyal to the NHL and Gary Bettman but also as a shrewd numbers guy who looks to find an edge for the Devils no matter what. Some conspiracy theorists have opined that Lamoriello went ahead with the 17-year contract as a means to get things started for the NHL to step in on long-term salary cap-skirting contracts. Once we take the tinfoil off, we see that Lou was just being Lou and trying to tweak the numbers as best as he could while pushing the limits.

While the terms of the contract are not known outright, it’s believed that the offer is for 15 years at $100 million, good for a cap hit of $6,666,666.66. While the number 17 was running wild before for Kovalchuk when he spoke at the press conference for his now negated contract, it’s only fitting to have the Number of the Beast running wild all over this contract.

Now if only they could work something out with Miroslav Satan and have some real fun with it this year.