{"id":1018,"date":"2013-07-11T16:49:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-11T20:49:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2013-07-11T16:49:01","modified_gmt":"2013-07-11T20:49:01","slug":"ilya-kovalchuk-retires-from-nhl-with-77-million-left-on-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/2013\/07\/11\/ilya-kovalchuk-retires-from-nhl-with-77-million-left-on-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Ilya Kovalchuk retires from NHL with $77 million left on contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_1019\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1019\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1019\" alt=\"ilyakovachuk\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2013\/07\/ilyakovachuk.jpg\" width=\"676\" height=\"467\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2013\/07\/ilyakovachuk.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2013\/07\/ilyakovachuk-300x207.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1019\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Source: Bruce Bennett\/Getty Images North America<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Ilya Kovalchuk is retiring from the NHL leaving behind 12 years and $77 million, The 30-year-old informed the New Jersey Devils that he plans to return to Russia.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This decision was something I have thought about for a long time going back to the lockout and spending the year in Russia,&#8221; Kovalchuk said in a statement released by the team. &#8220;Though I decided to return this past season, Lou [Lamoriello, general manager] was aware of my desire to go back home and have my family there with me. The most difficult thing for me is to leave the New Jersey Devils, a great organization that I have a lot of respect for, and our fans that have been great to me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kovalchuk scored 417 goals and registered 816 points in 816 career games with the Devils and Atlanta Thrashers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ilya Kovalchuk is retiring from the NHL leaving behind 12 years and $77 million, The 30-year-old informed the New Jersey Devils that he plans to return to Russia. &#8220;This decision was something I have thought about for a long time going back to the lockout and spending the year in Russia,&#8221; Kovalchuk said in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[90],"coauthors":[3],"class_list":{"0":"post-1018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-back-page-featured","8":"category-news","9":"tag-ilya-kovachuk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}