Holy Cow is Kovalchuk going to cost a lot of money for the team that wants and ends up signing him; it’s going to cost some team over 10 million a year to sign him. There is a lot of chatter on the blogsphere on where he is going to go. I am hoping the Boston Bruins are going to make a run at him but I don't think they have the cap space or anything to trade back to the Thrashers. The Bruins GM has said he won't trade the first round pick in this year's draft that they got from the Leafs for Phil Kessel. I have seen Blake Wheeler and DU Pioneer Joel Colborne's names thrown around as trade bait.
Statement from Thrashers GM Don Waddell:
"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. [The Hockey News]
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