New Jersey Devils forward Ilya Kovalchuk, one of the game's top scoring threats, stunned the hockey world Thursday when he announced he was retiring from the National Hockey League.

"This decision was something I have thought about for a long time, going back to the lockout and spending the year in Russia," Kovalchuk said in a statement released by the team.

The 30-year-old winger had 12 years and $77 million remaining on the 15-year, $100 million contract he signed with New Jersey in September 2010, inking that deal after establishing himself as one of the league's top snipers. Kovalchuk twice scored 50 goals in a season and topped 40 in four others.

There have been other marquee players who have moved on, most notably when the Edmonton Oilers Oilers traded Wayne Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings for Jimmy Carson, Martin Gelinas, $15 million in cash and the Kings' first-round draft picks in 1989, 1991 and 1993. But even that trade wasn't nearly as costly as what New Jersey has paid, and will continue to pay, for Kovalchuk.


While not quite a "king's ransom," New Jersey traded Niclas Bergfors, Johnny Oduya, Patrice Cormier and its first- and second-round draft picks in 2010 to the Atlanta Thrashers for Kovalchuk, Anssi Salmela and the Thrashers' 2010 second-rounder. Kovalchuk was then on the last year of a five-year, $32 million deal, and would soon be one of the most sought-after free agents on the market before the Devils were finally able to land him -- again at a steep cost.

The NHL rejected the original deal (17 years, $102 million) because the league claimed it circumvented the salary cap, but New Jersey would eventually get the green light on a 15-year, $100 million contract. But the ultimate bill extended beyond money alone. As a penalty for the rejected Kovalchuk deal, the league fined New Jersey $3 million and stripped the Devils of their third-round pick in 2011 and what will be their first-round pick in 2014.

Over the next three seasons, Kovalchuk would tally 79 goals in 195 games and lead New Jersey to its first Stanley Cup finals appearance since its championship run of 2003. But at what price?

Due to Kovalchuk's back-diving contract, which took his annual salary from a high point of $11.8 million in 2016-17 to a $10 million total over the deal's last five seasons, his early retirement will cost the Devils a $250,000-300,000 salary-cap penalty for the next 12 years. However, the recapture penalty New Jersey now faces under the new collective bargaining agreement is nothing compared to the damage to the roster, both in the short and long term.

The signing ahead of the 2010-11 season would contribute in part to the firing of then-head coach John MacLean, whose rocky relationship with Kovalchuk came to a head after the Russian became a healthy scratch in a regular-season game against the Buffalo Sabres. It would also put New Jersey in a salary-cap bind, which likely cost the team its captain when Zach Parise left in the summer of 2012 to join the Minnesota Wild for $98 million over 13 years.

Parise wouldn't be the only forward departing for greener pastures. David Clarkson signed with Toronto this summer for $36.75 million over seven years, putting even more pressure on New Jersey's top six forwards to score in the season ahead. With Kovalchuk gone, the offensive projections for next season look bleak. To the right you'll see the top five even-strength scoring lines from 2013 returning for New Jersey next season, assuming the club can come to terms with restricted free agents Adam Henrique and Jacob Josefson.

Is 27-year-old Steve Bernier ready to take the next step and surpass his career-high 16-goal season from back in 2007-08 when he was with San Jose? Maybe Patrik Elias, who re-signed for three years, $16.5 million this summer, will become the 15th forward since the 2005-06 season to score 20 or more goals after turning 37 years old. Or perhaps Travis Zajac will rediscover his scoring touch from 2009-10, the last time he topped 20 goals in a season. The former first-round pick has notched just nine in 63 games over the past two campaigns. Long shots all.

New Jersey did bring in some free agents, signing Ryane Clowe, Rostislav Olesz and Michael Ryder this offseason, but none comes close to playing the type of minutes Kovalchuk logged for New Jersey last season.

Draft picks. Roster players. Millions of dollars in fines and dead cap space. And now the Devils are left with nothing. It's true that they may have dodged a future bullet in terms of a stiffer recapture penalty had Kovalchuk departed in the latter years of his contract, but the cost of avoiding that potential future penalty is the loss of a player who averaged a point per game during his NHL career.

Only six active players boast a career point-per-game mark better than Kovalchuk's. Replacing that in the short term will be impossible. Replacing that next season in free agency will require players like Phil Kessel, Thomas Vanek or the Sedin twins to actually reach the open market. And that help won't come cheap if they do. Adding through the draft is more cost-effective, though securing a star outside of the top three in the draft is far from a certainty. And even if the Devils bottom out and top the lottery in 2014, their first-round pick is gone.

When you add up the tab it took to land him and realize the Devils will have to spend even more to address Kovalchuk's absence going forward, it's hard to look at his time in New Jersey and not come to a simple conclusion: Acquiring Kovalchuk is the costliest move an NHL franchise has ever made.

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