OFFICIAL: NHL Approves Ilya Kovalchuk Contract with New Jersey Devils

It's...It's over.

Early this morning, the NHL and NHLPA agreed to accept the Ilya Kovalchuk contract that was signed and submitted by the New Jersey Devils on Friday, August 27th, along with amending the CBA that deals with contracts over 5 years long. The NHL released its story at 2:53 a.m. ET. After the initial extension announced Wednesday that pushed the deadline 48 hours to Friday at 5 p.m. ET., the NHL and NHLPA mutually agreed to push deadline every hour until 10 p.m.. Both organizations worked vigorously into the night to finalize the contract and the new regulations involving long term deals. Here's some quick information about the contract and other information.

The Ilya Kovalchuck contract is for 15 years/$100 million; a cap hit and average of $6,666,667 per season. His salary breakdown is as followed (from Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet): 6, 6, 11, 11.3, 11.3, 11.6, 11.8, 10, 7, 4, 1, 1, 1, 3, 4. Tom Gulitti confirmed the breakdown on Twitter. Kovalchuk will turn 42 in April during the last season of his contract. Also from Gulitti, there is a movement clause in the contract, yet the details have not been released.

More to come a little later along with some links. Treat this as an open thread for the day.

Talk about Kovy, the Devils cap situation currently, and the new rules to the CBA. The Rules and Guidelines as always are applied. Please follow them, and thanks for reading. Also, WHOO!