NHL rejects Carolina's offer to Fedorov

Hurricanes roster

"The league did reject the contract because we did not believe it was in compliance with Collective Bargaining Agreement," NHL spokesman Gary Meagher said.

Fedorov is a restricted free agent which gives Detroit a right to match Carolina's offer or accept five first-round draft choices in compensation. Detroit's original deadline is Wednesday, but all depends on arbitration now.

"I do not understand why our offer sheet to Sergei Fedorov was rejected as we have followed all of the guidelines of the Collective Bargaining Agreement," Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford said. "We will take all the proper steps to ensure that our offer sheet is valid. The initial step is to immediately bring the issue to an outside arbitrator and we anticipate a quick response."

Hurricanes' offer gives Fedorov a $14 million signing bonus, $2 million in salary and a $12 million bonus if the teams he is on makes the Conference finals. It is much more likely that Detroit makes the Conference finals than Carolina, so that might be one of the sticking points in NHL's point of view.