Statement from Don Waddell Regarding Ilya Kovalchuk
February 4, 2010 by Tom Ferda
Below is a statement just released by Atlanta Thrashers GM Don Waddell concerning signing Ilya Kovalchuk:
Our goal from the start of this negotiating process was to sign Ilya Kovalchuk to a long-term contract. 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.
Other Thrashers Articles:
Kovalchuk Showing Great Leadership in Atlanta
Atlanta Goalie Allows 180-foot Shot to Score in Loss
Copyright © 2010 – Sports Climax
As much as I think Waddell is a failure he makes a strong point about not being able to retain all their upcoming talent if they spend the bank on Kovy.
I hope get him in the island!
Amazing how nobody wants to stay with that team in Atlanta, Heatley, Hossa now Kovalchuk–give it up and move to Canada, Atlanta.
Really anxious to hear the agent’s rebuttal to all this detail that Waddell finally is confirming from the teams end of the deal.
[...] jumped into his ‘save face’ mode with a press release this week explaining in detail to the fans and media the millions that were offered and turned down by Kovy [...]