Kovalchuk Re-Signs with Devils

[Guest mindfly]

It drops from 6.5 -> 3.5 -> 750k in 3 seasons... good job NHL!

[Frozen-Man 144]

So then the league will probably be stopping this in the future as it is total crap.

Well its kind of a good and bad. What it was supposed to do was eliminate players structuring weird deals where they made a lot one year or another to manipulate the cap. For example having a great player, lets say Kovy, sign with Detroit making $3M this year and then kicking his salary up to $7M next year in anticipation of Lids retiring and the Wings having a lot more space. You lock the player up but may not have a big cap hit in certain years.

Normally it is not near as big a deal to have an average cap hit as it is with this contract and there are rules regarding how much the player's salary can drop from year to year, but the longer the deal the more you can pay high but stretch it out over long term to minimize the cap hit. If players play out the whole contract there is no real problem it is when, like here, no one believes Kovy will play until he is 44.

[Bring Back The Bruise Bros 1,029]

So with Kovalchuk re-signing,New Jersey seems to have their top 6 set with:

Parise

Kovalchuk

Langenbrunner

Zajac

Rolston

Elias

They still have a sport or 2 to fill in the bottom 6 don't they?

Arnott

Clarkson

Zharkov

Pelley

Leblond

[Frozen-Man 144]

so when he's 37 ten years from now thinking of retirement he can go oh yea i still have 7 YEARS left. Cheli watch out you might have someone catching you in the playing forever category. If not him playing forever it'll be his cap hit (much lower than now but still)

His cap hit will be gone when he retires, he is under 35 so the salary doesn't count against the cap when he retires. He can retire at 38 with 6 years left on his contract and only be out $3.5M of his total $102M contract and there will be no more cap hit.

I love how acting like these frontloaded contracts are new...

I agree front loaded contracts are not new however the degree is. . . a 17 year front loaded contract that has a hockey player under contract until he is 44 is new not in the fact that it is a front loaded contract but the degree to which it is used. In tax law we have a saying pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. That is what is "new" the change from pigs to hogs and IMO the Devils run the risk of getting slaughtered.

[Guest mindfly]

Cease the salary cap!

[dragonballgtz 273]

If the league doesn't contest it, all bets are off for every NHL GM going forward. The flood-gates will officially be open to contracts like this.

The flood gates opened up when Detroit started this trend. People are just now taking it into another extreme. I bet next round of CBA talks the league might try to stop this sort of thing.

Edited July 20, 2010 by dragonballgtz

[Guest screwdahawks]

Well its kind of a good and bad. What it was supposed to do was eliminate players structuring weird deals where they made a lot one year or another to manipulate the cap. For example having a great player, lets say Kovy, sign with Detroit making $3M this year and then kicking his salary up to $7M next year in anticipation of Lids retiring and the Wings having a lot more space. You lock the player up but may not have a big cap hit in certain years.

Normally it is not near as big a deal to have an average cap hit as it is with this contract and there are rules regarding how much the player's salary can drop from year to year, but the longer the deal the more you can pay high but stretch it out over long term to minimize the cap hit. If players play out the whole contract there is no real problem it is when, like here, no one believes Kovy will play until he is 44.

Ya think Zetterberg is gonna play til he is 41 or Hossa til he is 43? f*** NO.

Edited July 19, 2010 by screwdahawks

[Guest screwdahawks]

The question now is with 20 players signed and 2M over cap, who is gonna get dumped?

[VM1138 1,921]

You know, at first I liked these front-loaded contracts, but now that more and more teams are doing it, and every free agency gets more boring, I've decided I don't like them.

Why doesn't every team simply signed all their under-35 players to reasonably priced, 20 year contracts and we can do away with free agency altogether. That way, no team has to worry about keeping their team together and we can suck all the off-season drama out of hockey.

[rage 24]

Damn, we should has signed him to a 30 year deal!!

[Buppy 1,720]

Ya think Zetterberg is gonna play til he is 41 or Hossa til he is 43? f*** NO.

Zetterberg will be 40 in his final year (as will Franzen and Lecavalier). Hossa and Pronger will each be 42. Luongo will turn 43. Kovy will turn 44 in his final year. These deals keep getting more and more ridiculous.

It's pretty rare for players to reach 40, with only around 60-70 players in history doing so. (It is getting a bit more common though, about 20 of those from the past decade.) I think it's under 20 have played at 42. Only like 7 players in history have made it to 44.

And 6 garbage years tacked on at basically league minimum. It's such a clear attempt at circumvention they should remove Lamoriello from the HHOF. If the league doesn't step in here and deny this deal, they should just get rid of the cap altogether. I'd expect a 20+ year deal for Parise next year.

[Yzerman191 37]

Here is the breakdown of Kovalchuk's 17-year, $102M contract, according to Michael Russo and Rich Hammond's sources:

2010-2011 $6,000,000

2011-2012 $6,000,000

2012-2013 $11,500,000

2013-2014 $11,500,000

2014-2015 $11,500,000

2015-2016 $11,500,000

2016-2017 $11,500,000

2017-2018 $10,500,000

2018-2019 $8,500,000

2019-2020 $6,500,000

2020-2021 $3,500,000

2021-2022 $750,000

2022-2023 $550,000

2023-2024 $550,000

2024-2025 $550,000

2025-2026 $550,000

2026-2027 $550,000

The league has five days to review the contract.

[HankthaTank 1,100]

Here is the breakdown of Kovalchuk's 17-year, $102M contract, according to Michael Russo and Rich Hammond's sources:

2010-2011 $6,000,000

2011-2012 $6,000,000

2012-2013 $11,500,000

2013-2014 $11,500,000

2014-2015 $11,500,000

2015-2016 $11,500,000

2016-2017 $11,500,000

2017-2018 $10,500,000

2018-2019 $8,500,000

2019-2020 $6,500,000

2020-2021 $3,500,000

2021-2022 $750,000

2022-2023 $550,000

2023-2024 $550,000

2024-2025 $550,000

2025-2026 $550,000

2026-2027 $550,000

The league has five days to review the contract.

They let this go through there is really no more of a dip s*** commissioner in all of sports. Yet we already know he is and I feel like it will still go through lol.

Its just laughable.

[syntax 359]

Time for a soft cap with a luxury tax. (More power to Jersey for doing this without technically breaking the rules, however.)

Edited July 20, 2010 by syntax

[newfy 695]

Zetterberg will be 40 in his final year (as will Franzen and Lecavalier). Hossa and Pronger will each be 42. Luongo will turn 43. Kovy will turn 44 in his final year. These deals keep getting more and more ridiculous.

It's pretty rare for players to reach 40, with only around 60-70 players in history doing so. (It is getting a bit more common though, about 20 of those from the past decade.) I think it's under 20 have played at 42. Only like 7 players in history have made it to 44.

And 6 garbage years tacked on at basically league minimum. It's such a clear attempt at circumvention they should remove Lamoriello from the HHOF. If the league doesn't step in here and deny this deal, they should just get rid of the cap altogether. I'd expect a 20+ year deal for Parise next year.

Why because he's smart enough to play within the rules and give his team more salary cap? As long as this rule is in place you can't really hate on a GM for using to his advantage.

Anyone saying this is dumb really needs to stop being hypocrites, look at the Z deal

[eva unit zero 271]

They let this go through there is really no more of a dip s*** commissioner in all of sports. Yet we already know he is and I feel like it will still go through lol.

Its just laughable.

Sergei Fedorov is 40 years old, Jaromir Jagr is 38. Both are not only still playing, but played at the 2010 Olympics, and may well play at the 2014 Olympics also.

Kovalchuk likely won't be one of the world's elite forwards at 44, but that does not mean he will not be a good hockey player if he chooses to play that long, which he certainly may be capable of.

[crotty99 302]

I'm sure his pay those last 4-5 years is really low, $1M or so, that way he can retire and made most of the money. The cap hit would be bad but I doubt the actual pay is.

Yes the cap hit was what I was referring too sorry. I can't believe how quick his pay drops in the last half of the contract.

I didn't expect to come back on here today and find the 17 year rumor to be true!

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

It's borderline refreshing to hear of a player who isn't so greedy that he passed up tax-free money from the KHL.

[ShanahanMan 473]

This contract is disgusting. What's the point of a salary cap if teams are allowed to cheat it by signing players to insanely long term deals. Pretty soon, no one will be available come free agency because the average player will be in the middle of his 20 year contract. Seriously, how the he'll can this be approved.

[ComradeWasabi 109]

I hope this deal gets a serious look from the NHL. 17 years, with 550k for the last five years? Yeah right, if there's ever been evidence of obvious cap circumvention this is it.

[stevieisthebest 80]

SEVENTEEN YEARS?!?

... the f***?

[titanium2 867]

Hahaha. Is the league really going to allow this?

[Buppy 1,720]

Why because he's smart enough to play within the rules and give his team more salary cap? As long as this rule is in place you can't really hate on a GM for using to his advantage.

Anyone saying this is dumb really needs to stop being hypocrites, look at the Z deal

Historically speaking, it is on the order of 10x as likely for a player to play until 40 than it is 44. Recent history is nearly double even that huge difference. Add to that the Wings history of having a good deal of success with aging vets, it is hardly a stretch to imagine both Hank and Mule playing out their contracts.

It's only 'playing within the rules' if Lou expects Kovy to play out the full duration of the contract. If he suspects that Kovy will retire before then, he is circumventing the salary cap. That's called cheating. I doubt someone as generally smart as Lamoriello has any illusion that Kovy will fulfill that contract. No reasonable person would expect that. Therefore, I believe he is knowlingly and deliberately cheating. Gaming a loophole is one thing, this is flat out abuse.

[Konnan511 1,736]

I love this. We complained all the time about players never playing with one time their entire careers, this is a perfect way to do so now.

[Tommy_Like_Wingy 25]

We have contracts like this on our team. What's the big deal here? Kovalchuk will be out of the West the rest of his career. How can anyone complain about this?