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Ilya Kovalchuk will be returning to the NHL next season and, chances are, it won't be with the New Jersey Devils.
There will be plenty of teams involved in sign-and-trade discussions but a few stand out to me as better fits and/or more likely destinations than others.
Those teams: San Jose, Montreal, and the New York Islanders.
Kovalchuk seemed to thoroughly enjoy his time playing for Pete DeBoer, who happens to coach the Sharks. DeBoer used Kovalchuk in all situations and he enjoyed great success headlined by leading the Devils in scoring during their run to the Stanley Cup Final. The Sharks are a playoff team every year and their window is starting to close. Kovalchuk is the kind of player that could put them over the top and they could make room for him by letting Patrick Marleau walk in free agency, for example. I imagine playing in a warm weather city for a perennial playoff team could be attractive to Kovalchuk.
Montreal makes sense on a ton of levels. As a team desperate for scoring, Kovalchuk is exactly the kind of player that should appeal to them. There is the Alexander Radulov connection, too, which can't hurt their chances. They are also a playoff lock as long as Carey Price is healthy.
Lastly, the Islanders. They could use some help up front and they're trying to convince John Tavares to re-sign long-term. He wants to win and adding a player of Kovalchuk's caliber would show him they're serious about doing so. If they get Kovalchuk to ride shotgun with Tavares and he helps get the Islanders back in the playoffs, I imagine Tavares would feel pretty good about sticking around.
I've seen the Rangers and Florida Panthers brought up countless times but a) the Rangers don't have the money to pay Kovalchuk, nor a need for more talent up front and; b) based on what I've heard, I don't think the Panthers are as interested in Kovalchuk as he may be in them (although you never say never).
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If you include the money that will be freed up with Ryane Clowe on LTIR, the Devils have ~$26 million in cap space to work with.
Some of that money will go towards re-signing players (most notably Damon Severson), and some will be used to upgrade the roster. That said, Ray Shero isn't going to throw money at anyone and everyone so there should be some extra space left over.
One thing the Devils could do with it: eat a contract and pick up an asset to do it.
The Dallas Stars, for example, are going to have more than $16 million committed to goaltenders once Ben Bishop signs. I imagine they'll be looking to trade Kari Lehtonen ($5.9M for one more year) or Antti Niemi ($4.5M for one more year) and would probably part with a prospect or draft pick to do it.
I'd be comfortable with either of those guys backing up (more so Lehtonen, although he's much more costly) and if the Devils were going to have leftover money, anyway, they may as well use it to add another asset.
A middle round pick or mid-tier prospect, let's say, may not seem like much but free assets (like the 2nd the Devils picked up for eating Marc Savard's contract) add up and make a difference over time.
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