Commentary NEWARK, NJ – I suppose it should come as little surprise that the NHL Players Association is sticking by ‘their man’ and has filed a grievance with the league on behalf of Ilya Kovalchuk and his rejected ‘mega deal’.
The Russian superstar signed a mammoth 17-year, $102 million contract to stay with New Jersey, only for the league to reject the deal, citing that it was designed to ‘circumvent the salary cap’. Seeing the numbers, in a lot of ways it is pretty hard to argue with the NHL on that side of things.
Kovalchuk would be 44 when the deal expires, an age at which very, VERY few are still playing professional hockey, and even fewer doing so in the NHL. Or to put it in to a slightly different way – former Devils forward, and now Team Coach, John MacLean only turned 45 last November! Furthermore the winger would take home a massive $95 million of the total in the first 10 years! And yet for all that, New Jersey would only see a $6 million cap hit. Oh, and he conveniently has a No Movement Clause which ‘expires’ as he reaches the autumn of his career!
The way in which the deal has been done works heavily in the Devils favour in terms of cap hit and therefore cap space – but it also gives Kovalchuk the long-term deal he so publicly desired, with a nice take home pay cheque through his ‘prime years’. And it is exactly that creative use of the numbers, and methods used to determine the cap hit, that the NHL objects too.
This isn’t the first long term deal the NHL has seen passed to its players. Rick DiPietro’s staggering 15-year deal with the Islanders was something of a benchmark. The difference is DiPietro takes home $4.5 million every year for the life of the deal, and so the cap hit is also $4.5 million. Whether you agree with those numbers or not, the deal is at the very least ‘honest’.
Other deals however have set this trend of ‘front loading’ contracts, and exposed a pretty big loophole in the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. Marian Hossa, Chris Pronger, Roberto Luongo and Henrik Zetterberg have also seen long term front loaded deals accepted by the NHL. Some would also throw Johan Franzen’s current deal with Detroit in there too. These contracts have caused many to wonder if the NHL really does have a case to stop the Kovalchuk contract.
But despite the length and creative financing of some of the aforementioned deals, none have quite the same discrepancy between the cap hit and what the player actually takes home. In some years Kovalchuk will take home nearly double the money he is actually costing New Jersey in terms of cap hit.
The league also deemed other deals to have been negotiated ‘in good faith’. So while it is unlikely Roberto Luongo will still be playing in to his early forties, clearly the league felt there was at least a remote chance he might and that his deal was therefore ‘acceptable’. No one, even the player himself, seems to believe Kovalchuk will actually still be in the NHL at 44.
The NHL’s decision not to rubber stamp this contract is seen by some as the league taking a stand, firing a shot across the bow of the NHLPA and the clubs and generally showing it will not allow loopholes to be so brutally exploited – and all in time for the next CBA negotiations ahead of the current agreements expiry in 2011! Wouldn’t you know it eh?
Either way, until the NHLPA and the NHL can agree on an arbitrator to settle this matter, both the deal and Kovalchuk remain in limbo. Something of a sad state of affairs for a story which created such excitement around July 1st, but many fans now feel has dragged itself along for far too long.
Everyone wants to see Kovalchuk signed – in one sense or another – but perhaps not like this.
Contact the author: rob.mcgregor@prohockeynews.com
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