edicius

Agreed. No one would even blink if, say, a 29 year-old player got a six-year contract that went like $3M, $3M, $1.5M, $1.5M, $750K, $750K. Try and sign a 37 year old player to a contract like that and the tune would change, because of where the contract ends.

Then he made a mistake by choosing the Devils. Correct. It's $4.5M throughout. http://capgeek.com/players/display.php?id=1101

I also find it funny that the Devils had a press conference announcing the contract...and then they got smacked down by the league. That's just embarrassing.

I find this hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. Lou must be fuming.

Nope, Mac was right. And I forgot that Crosby's five-year was an extension with one year left on his current one. Good catch, Mac. And my point was that Bettman wouldn't be in favor of closing the loophole until Crosby gets his ridiculous 25-year deal with an insanely low cap hit. None taken. I admit that my hatred goes overboard.

It won't happen. I seriously doubt we'll see any closing of the loophole before 2012, when a certain someone's contract is up. And I find that absolutely hilarious. At least, I suppose, they're addressing their scoring problem (even though it doesn't seem like Kovalchuk fits well into the Devils' system) knowing that they can't rely on Brodeur to steal games for them any longer. His postseasons have been garbage for the past three years, it's only a matter of time before his regular seasons follow suit. I'm just curious who they're going to have to dump now to get under the cap and if they'll be able to avoid Parise leaving when his contract's up. Lou seems to have issues with the cap, that's for certain.

That has to be a typo...because that would make absolutely NO sense with the term of the deal. That's still an $8.8M/yr cap hit and the point of these cap-circumventing contracts is to LOWER the yearly cap hit.

Honestly, the only way to really close this loophole would be to calculate the average retirement age of NHL players and make that the cutoff age for long-term contracts like this. Of course, calculating something like that is tough, because some players end up playing overseas once they retire, a la Hasek. It may just seem like an arbitrary age, but 40 seems to be the one that makes the most sense. There's absolutely no way Kovalchuk is playing until he's 44 and frankly, I don't even see him playing much past 40, if even that.

It's official. Devils' official Twitter says so. Well, guess he valued less travel in the East over a better chance to win a Cup with a young team like Los Angeles. Devils aren't winning anything any time soon.

+1 to both of you. Along with Niemi, Fleury's probably one of the worst goaltenders to win a Cup in the past ten years.

Eww. EWWWWWWW. Serious ****** chills.

C'mon, Lils... If other teams are iffy on your $1.5M, just come on home. You won't even have to deal with Lebs anymore!

That's tough to say. Nashville's kind of a wild card right now because their team got gutted so badly this offseason, not unlike Chicago - main difference being that Nashville did it by choice, whereas Chicago did it by necessity. My guess for the Central Standings would be Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville, then poor, poor Columbus (hey, at least they made the playoffs once, right?).

Per TFP's Twitter:

LA would have to throw a hell of a deal at him, considering the rumors that he doesn't want to play in the Western Conference.

Wonder if they got their wires crossed with the whole Nabokov signing (even though it is mentioned in the article). Either that, or maybe Kovy wants to play with Nabby now.

Take this for what it's worth from TFP:

Not too shabby at all. Good job, Kenny.

And Los Angeles is back in the mix... Via TFP Twitter:

Hey, it happened to New Jersey in 1996, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.

According to TFP, Kovalchuk doesn't want to play in the West. Typical.

Yet, he still lost in the first round that year. He had comparable stats in the '07 playoffs (slightly worse GAA and SV%) and he played 78 regular season games that year, but at least he made it to the second round. Regular season burnout or not, I still think it's indisputable - Marty's in serious decline and he's not going to backstop a team to the Cup in the final years of his career. That said - as a previous poster mentioned - it DOES make sense for NJ to try and nab a scorer like Kovy when they know that they won't be able to rely on goaltending to get it done for the foreseeable future. But on Kovy's side of things, if he wants a Cup? NJ isn't the place to win it any time soon.

Wow, Lou sure knows how to work with the cap. Oh, wait a second... Devils aren't going to win anything any time soon, not as long as Brodeur's still in net. He's in severe decline, especially in the postseason where he's won only 5 games in the past 3 years and hasn't been able to make it out of the first round since 2007 (where he suffered a 2nd round loss, same as the year before). Poor choice by Kovalchuk. He would have been better off with Los Angeles.

Turco's just destined to be one of the many formerly-prominent starting goaltenders who either finds himself as a "veteran backup", a starter on a team going nowhere or flat-out out of a job. Nabokov will land on his feet somewhere, but he sure won't get the money he's asking for, especially when the trend these days is success with cheap goaltending.

Seems like it's cooled off for the evening. Bob McKenzie logged off of Twitter, so I'm guessing that might be it for now.