In return, says TSN, the Thrashers will receive defenseman Johnny Oduya, forwards Niclas Bergfors and Patrice Cormier and a first-round draft pick. According to Allen, along with Kovalchuk, the Devils get Finnish defenseman Anssi Salmela in the trade.
In 49 games for the Thrashers this season, Kovalchuk scored 31 goals and added 27 assists and is on target to set career bests in both plus-minus and penalty minutes.
The Boston Bruins were widely considered to be one of the teams in the final running to land Kovalchuk — along with the Los Angeles Kings, Chicago Blackhawks and New York Rangers — but it appears that general manager Peter Chiarelli was unwilling to meet Atlanta's trade demands.
Kovalchuk, 26, has spent the last seven-plus seasons with the Atlanta Thrashers, but the Russian superstar is set to become an unrestricted free agent when his current contract expires on July 1. The Thrashers had long hoped to re-sign Kovalchuk, but it recently became clear that they were unable to meet his salary demands.
"Our goal from the start of this negotiating process was to sign Ilya Kovalchuk to a long-term contract," said Atlanta general manager Don Waddell in a statement on Thursday. "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."
Kovalchuk, who has 328 goals and 287 assists (615 points) in 594 career games in Atlanta, was the No. 1 overall pick by the Thrashers in the 2001 draft. In his seven full NHL seasons, Atlanta has made the playoffs just once, getting swept out of the first round by the Rangers in 2007.
