Seventeen Years In Newark

The announcement that the NHL has rejected Ilya Kovalchuk's 17 year, $102 million dollar contract with the New Jersey Devils does not come as a surprise. See, there are some influential people in the NHL that will look at the possibility that Ilya will be productive for 17 more seasons and cringe at the thought of him breaking some very important records. And that simply cannot be allowed to happen. If Kovalchuk continues on his current per-season averages for another 17 seasons:

• He will play 1940 games, besting "Mr. Hockey", Gordie Howe's record by 173 Games Played.
• He will score 1056 regular season goals, besting Wayne Gretzky's combined regular season and playoff total of 1016. You won't even have to add in the 12 postseason goals Ilya will have scored by then!
• He will become only the second player to pass the 2000 regular season point barrier. Of course, he'll still be over 800 points behind The Great One thanks to assists, having never intentionally passed the puck in his career.
• His career +/- will be -234. Finally, a stat that looks right next to the name 'Kovalchuk'.
• He'll score 365 PP goals. As Dave Andreychuk can attest, this means absolutely nothing to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
• Ilya will take over 7000 shots, approximately the same number of shots taken per episode of Jersey Shore.
• He still won't be as good as Alex Ovechkin.