It looks like everyone spoke to soon about Ilya Kovalchuk’s mammoth contract with the New Jersey Devils. The NHL has rejected his 17 year, $102 million contract because of cap circumvention. All I can say here is, what took them so long?
Precedent was set for this kind of front-loaded, stupidly long term contracts last year with Chris Pronger, Marian Hossa and Roberto Luongo’s long term contracts. In all three cases the contracts start out huge but taper off very rapidly, and takes them all past their obvious playing days.
While this may not seem like a big deal, it is something that really shouldn’t be allowed. In all cases the Devils, Flyers, Blackhawks, and Canucks all are creatively getting around the cap. They are signing these player for longer than they will play, knowing full well that they will retire before the contract runs out. Once the players retire, they still get paid but their salary does not count against the cap.
I think that these clever circumventions are going to be sticking points in the next Collective Bargaining Agreement. Gary Bettman has said that he didn’t like the long-term contracts that had been handed out to Rick DiPietro, Mike Richards, and Alex Ovechkin. But all three of these players were in their early twenties when they signed them, and they could play past the end of these contracts. This makes them fundamentally different than the ones to Pronger, Hossa, Luongo, and Kovalchuck.
For all of the flaws with the NBA’s system, they do seem to have one thing right, term limits on contracts. The maximum term for a free agent signing with a new team is 5 years, and with their current team is 6 years. This being part of the reason that LeBron is taking such a big pay-cut to sign with the Heat.
I really think that the NHL will consider adding something like this to the next CBA. I’m certain that they will meet some resistance from the NHLPA, as they of course gave in to have the hard salary cap and consequently would not want to to have any other limits. However, I really don’t see what the other options are if they want to get rid of these contracts.
Now on the other hand, are these mega-long contracts that bad of a thing? I mean, one of the big things people complain about professional sports, especially hockey, is that so many players are now mercenaries. Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Scott Stevens, and Joe Sakic are all players who have at one time or another been referred to as “the last great player to spend his career on one team”. Other recent greats like Gretzky, Messier, and Patrick Roy split their career on different teams and people decried this as the players were not tied to teams like they were “in the old days”.
But now we can probably add modern greats like Alexander Ovechkin, Vincent LeCavalier, and Henrik Zetterberg to theses lists, as they have long term contracts with the teams that drafted them. Is this necessarily a bad thing? And isn’t this what people were hoping for when Gretzky or Jagr were traded?
I think that this is something that the NHL needs to really decide if it’s what it wants. Do they want to have players tied to teams like they used to be, or have them move around to chase the money like they did in the final decade before the lockout?
As for Kovy, I’m sure that he’ll work something out. I doubt that he’ll pursue the legality of his contract for too long. Although he may have a point that they allowed Pronger’s contract, which has the same low amount in the contract as this one. I think that he’ll sign a new, slightly shorter deal with either to Devils, or possible the LA Kings in the coming weeks.
Hopefully, the drama will end then, but I’m not too hopeful.
Until next time,
G
Tags: 17 posts, Free Agency, Hockey
[...] favour and has voided Kovalchuck’s insane contract for cap circumvention. As a I said a few weeks ago, it’s about time that the NHL stepped in on these contracts. I can’t say that [...]