The New Jersey Devils had their press conference reintroducing their newest Devil, Ilya Kovalchuk, and had Jamie Langebrunner, Zach Parise, and Martin Brodeur along with others to bring Kovalchuk aboard. According to reports, those conferences may have been too soon. This from Sportsnet's Nick Kypreos:
Word I'm hearing is the league has rejected Kovalchuk 17 year NJ contract... Stay tuned....
Here is the reason why
NHL deems Kovy contract "a retirement contract". Says it "artificially drops cap hit". Also states its too overloaded the first 10 yrs
The league is stepping in due to the general absurdity of the deal, but they run a fine line because of the fact that there is no hard line saying what is too far. There will be more to come on this tonight and in the next few days.