NEWARK, N.J. -- The NHL has signed off on Ilya Kovalchuk's latest contract with the New Jersey Devils.
Five weeks after rejecting the Russian's landmark 17-year, $102 million contract with the Devils, the league approved a revised 15-year, $100 million deal on Friday after reaching an agreement with the NHL Players Association on an amendment covering long-term contracts.
Kovalchuk
Jay Grossman, Kovalchuk's agent, confirmed the agreement in an e-mail, The Associated Press reported.
A source told ESPN.com's Scott Burnside that as part of the amendment, the NHL has agreed to stop looking into the long-term deals of Chris Pronger, Roberto Luongo, Marc Savard and Marian Hossa.
In exchange for allowing those four contracts and Kovalchuk's new deal to stand under the old rules, the NHLPA agreed to new regulations governing how front-loaded, long-term contracts count against the salary cap.
In the future, the salary cap hit for any contract that is five years or more in length and takes a player to his 41st birthday or beyond will be determined by the average of the yearly salaries only until the year in which the player turns 40.
All remaining years in the deal after a player turns 41 will be recalculated based on the salary of those final years of the contract, according to the source.
The two-tiered cap system will prevent GMs from signing players like Kovalchuk to long-term deals with a dramatically reduced salary at the end of the contract designed to lower the salary cap.
For example, the original Kovalchuk deal would be allowed under the new rules, but the salary cap hit would be based on the first 13 years of the deal. When Kovalchuk turns 40, the cap hit would be recalculated based on the final four years of the contract. Under the amendment, the first 13 years of the original deal would cost the Devils $7.68 million annually against the salary cap while the final four years, when Kovalchuk would almost certainly have been retired, would come with a cap hit of $550,000.
"You could still do [that deal] but you can't use the five years at $550,000 to bring down the cap hit. It's almost two separate contracts really," the source said.
While the five contracts at issue will be honored at their current values, the new agreement agreed upon on Friday will cover any new contracts.
"Getting all those deals approved in exchange for [the new regulations] is a great deal," for the NHLPA, the source told ESPN.com.
The NHL had rejected the Devils' initial offer because it violated the league's salary cap. An arbiter upheld that decision after the union filed a grievance.
With 338 goals and 304 assists in 642 career games, Kovalchuk was the biggest prize on the NHL free agent market this season. The 27-year-old left wing had 41 goals and 44 assists in 2009-10, a season he split between Atlanta and the Devils, who acquired him in a multi-player deal in February.
As it stands, Kovalchuk's new deal will put a $6.67 million annual hit on the Devils' salary cap and put the team roughly $3 million over the league limit ($59.4 million) with only 21 players under contract, two under the league limit.
With a full roster, Devils president and general manager Lou Lamoriello probably is going to have to clear about $5 million in cap space before the season starts on Oct. 8.
While the annual salary breakdown for the deal was not immediately available, Kovalchuk will earn significantly more money in the final five years.
