KHL denies Ilya Kovalchuk to NHL rumours

Ilya-Kovalchuk-Alexander-Radulov

Russian forwards Ilya Kovalchuk, right, and Alexander Radulov are two of the KHL's biggest stars and were teammates at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. (Mark Humphrey/AP)

A report out of Finland earlier this week said Ilya Kovalchuk had expressed to his current KHL club, SKA Saint Petersburg, a desire to return to the NHL for the 2016-17 season.

The league’s official English Twitter account sent out a tweet Wednesday debunking that claim, while also shooting down a rumour Alexander Radulov would join Kovalchuk on SKA next season.

KHL_Hockey on Twitter

That tweet was sent shortly after Pavel Lysenkov of sovsport.ru reported Kovalchuk’s mother, Lyubov Kovalchuk, said any rumours of her son planning to leave Russia to go back to the NHL were “nonsense.”

Kovalchuk has spent the past two seasons in the KHL and is under contract with SKA until April 30, 2017. The 31-year-old shocked the hockey world in the summer of 2013 when he retired from the NHL in the midst of a 15-year, $100-million contract he signed with the New Jersey Devils in order to facilitate a move back to his home country.

In addition to the past two seasons, Kovalchuk played 36 games with SKA during the 2012 NHL lockout. The Tver native has 59 goals, 78 assists, 119 penalty minutes and a plus-27 rating in 135 career KHL games.

Kovalchuk was taken first overall by the Atlanta Thrashers in the 2001 NHL Draft, registering 417 goals and 816 points in 816 career NHL games.

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