Ilya Kovalchuk appears to be done playing at the highest levels of hockey. The 41-year-old winger told Russian news agency TASS on Friday that his time as a pro player is likely finished.
Kovalchuk has not played in the KHL this season after spending part of the 2023-24 campaign with Spartak Moscow. In 20 games for the team, the former two-time 50-goal scorer in the NHL recorded eight points (4g, 4a).
“I think my professional career is probably over,” Kovalchuk told TASS’s Andrey Kartashov as translated via Google Translate. “But I’ve said many times that I play hockey every day, even more often than when I was a professional. Of course, hockey will never leave my life. I’ve been playing it my whole life.”
However, despite reports interpreting his quote as a retirement announcement, Kovalchuk later made sure to provide a correction to Match TV’s Pavel Lysenkov.
“I have not officially announced the end of my career,” Kovalchuk said. “I am enjoying my family life, playing hockey. I am a free agent, call me!”
Kovalchuk made his professional debut with Spartak during the 1999-00 season, leading to him being selected number one overall in the 2001 NHL Draft by the Atlanta Thrashers. He spent eight and a half seasons as a member of the Thrashers, being named an All-Star three times and winning the 2004 Rocket Richard Trophy.
During the 2009-10 campaign, Kovalchuk was traded to the New Jersey Devils as a playoff rental. Kovalchuk eventually agreed to return to the Devils during the 2010 offseason, signing a 17-year, $102 million contract with the team that the NHL blocked due to its frontloaded structure. The Devils and Kovalchuk then agreed to a revised 15-year, $100 million deal, but New Jersey was stripped of a first and third-round pick and fined $3 million for their attempt to circumvent the salary cap.
Kovalchuk then only played three seasons of that deal with the Devils before “retiring” from the NHL. He played the next five years in the KHL with SKA St. Petersburg, winning the Gagarin Cup twice.
The veteran winger returned to North America during the 2018 offseason, signing a three-year, $18.75 million deal with the Los Angeles Kings. After spending parts of two seasons with the Kings, he terminated the remainder of his deal to sign with the Montreal Canadiens. Kovalchuk then requested to be traded to the Washington Capitals at the 2020 trade deadline and the Canadiens obliged.
Kovalchuk’s 15 games of action with the Capitals in the regular season and playoffs were his first as a teammate with Alex Ovechkin outside of national team duty. The good friends had wanted to play together since they were kids in their native Russia.
Ovechkin and Kovalchuk were part of a group of five Russians on the Caps at the end of the 2019-20 campaign, including Dmitry Orlov, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Ilya Samsonov. The five hung out together during the season’s COVID-19-forced pause, filming ridiculous TikTok content with Kuznetsov’s daughter Esenia.
After posting five points (1g, 4a) in those 15 games and facing an early postseason exit with the Caps, Kovalchuk returned to Russia again the next year and won another Gagarin Cup with Avangard Omsk. Before playing for Spartak last year, he stepped away from on-ice activities for two seasons.
In 926 career NHL games, Kovalchuk posted 876 points (443g, 433a). Among all-time European players, he ranks 13th in goals scored. The likely future Hockey Hall of Famer had been the Thrashers/Jets franchise leading goal scorer until Mark Scheifele passed him this season.
