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wings87

Loophole

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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.

If I was the NHL, I'd have no problem disapproving this deal. I think it is a clear circumvention of the cap. All the other long term deals at least ended no later than a player being 40 years old (I think). How can you justify a contract that has very, very close to a 0% chance of being completely fulfilled, especially with $98.5M of the $102M contract being paid out after the first 11 years of the 17 year deal. I'm not a fan of the contracts bringing guys to 40 either since the average player retires way before then, but at least with 40, you can point to several examples of players that have played to that age. At 44, other than Chelios, I can't think of any of the top of my head that have played to that age in the last 30 years.

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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.

I know you're thinking of Crosby and just as an FYI, his deal doesn't expire until 2013.

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If the NHL tries to stop these long term deals we will see more players go to the KHL where they can get the $100m contracts. The NHL is stuck with these type of contracts as long as we have a salary cap.

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I know you're thinking of Crosby and just as an FYI, his deal doesn't expire until 2013.

Why would he be thinking about Crosby? What does his contract have to do with any of this? I thought he must be thinking of Bettman, but who knows.

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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.

The already solved the Brodeur issue, by getting a backup that doesn't require Brodeur to play 70 games... if they keep Brodeur around 50 games in the regular season, he can be just as dominant in the playoffs as he had, even at his age...

like I said in the Kovy thread, if NJ adjusts their system a little, he could fit in there VERY well with talented forwards like Parise and Langenbruner, they just need to let them run and gun a little more...

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As was discussed in the Kovalchuk thread, I think Z and D for the C hit the nail right on the head for the solution...

This way, a team can sign ITS players for LONG term (if you want to sign a 20 year old to a 20 year deal, knock yourself out) but generally speaking, free agents will be limited to 13 or so year terms at most...

On top of that, another way you could curb deals like this would be to reduce the maximum drop percentage. Allowing player contracts to only drop say 10% from the previous season's salary would have a profound effect on these types of deals as well.

If this were the case Kovie's deal would look like this as it starts to tail off:

2016/2017: $11.50 million

2017/2018: $10.35 million

2018/2019: $9.32 million

2019/2020: $8.38 million

2020/2021: $7.54 million

2021/2022: $6.79 million

2022/2023: $5.50 million

2023/2024: $4.95 million

2024/2025: $4.56 million

2025/2026: $4.01 million

2026/2027: $3.61 million

Money left on the table if Kovie retires after 2020/2021 season:

10% Drop Rule: $29.42 million

Current Deal: $3.5 million

On top of that, shorter term deals than Kovie's would be far more dramatic!

Why would he be thinking about Crosby? What does his contract have to do with any of this? I thought he must be thinking of Bettman, but who knows.

edi thinks about Crosby....alot. He, as well as plenty of others around here feel the league caters toward him.

No offense whatsoever, edi. :D

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Why would he be thinking about Crosby? What does his contract have to do with any of this? I thought he must be thinking of Bettman, but who knows.

Nope, Mac was right. :lol: 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. :P

edi thinks about Crosby....alot. He, as well as plenty of others around here feel the league caters toward him.

No offense whatsoever, edi. :D

None taken. I admit that my hatred goes overboard. :lol:

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On top of that, another way you could curb deals like this would be to reduce the maximum drop percentage. Allowing player contracts to only drop say 10% from the previous season's salary would have a profound effect on these types of deals as well.

If this were the case Kovie's deal would look like this as it starts to tail off:

2016/2017: $11.50 million

2017/2018: $10.35 million

2018/2019: $9.32 million

2019/2020: $8.38 million

2020/2021: $7.54 million

2021/2022: $6.79 million

2022/2023: $5.50 million

2023/2024: $4.95 million

2024/2025: $4.56 million

2025/2026: $4.01 million

2026/2027: $3.61 million

Money left on the table if Kovie retires after 2020/2021 season:

10% Drop Rule: $29.42 million

Current Deal: $3.5 million

I like this one a lot too - possibly combine the 2 rules and we could be golden...

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Not really. The league can reject (or nullify at a later time, even if the deal is initially approved) any contract deemed to be a circumvention of the cap. But there isn't any specific definition of what constitutes circumvention. There is this, Section 26.13 (b) from the CBA:

That would seem to provide all the latitude necessary for the league to decide that a 17-year deal for a player who would be 44 at its conclusion can not be explained reasonably without considering it an attempt to avoid the Upper Limit, and/or an unwritten agreement (both of which are specifically prohibited). A line has to be drawn somewhere. Exactly where is somewhat arbitrary. Could be length of the deal, degree of front-loading, age of the player, etc.

There's nothing that specifically prevents 50 or 60 year deals either, but I think we'd all agree that offering a player a contract until they're 84 would be a clear case of circumvention. 84 is just an arbitrary number, there isn't any absolute guarantee that Kovy couldn't play that long. In all the history of the NHL there have been only 7 fewer 84 year-olds as there have been 44 year-olds. Pretty small difference, relatively speaking. No matter where the arbitrary number is (if age was the factor) there would be a line where age X is ok, but age X+1 isn't. They could easily, just for the sake of simplicity, say 43 is far enough.

It's a matter of degrees. See my 50-60 year example above. Also look at the effect of the 'garbage' years. All three deal are structured similar. Front loaded to pay out over 95% of the salary in the first 11, 10, and 9 years respectively for Kovy, Hank, and Mule. Coincidentally, that is when all three players turn 38. After that, all three see their salary drop to $1 million or less.

For Franzen and Zetterberg, each has two years at $1M, reducing their cap hits by around $650k for Frazen, and slightly over $1M for Hank. Kovy has 6 years paying a total of $3.5M, reducing his cap hit by nearly $3 million!

That said, I wouldn't really care if they did nullify our deal, provided we get a period of exclusivity in which to renegotiate. If it meant stopping the nonsense I'd be ok with it. If they let this one go, what are they going to do next year when Parise gets the 22 year deal NJ would need in order to afford him.

There's really not that much risk. If he starts to suck, NJ could just send him to the minors. He'd already have 95% of the salary, so he probably wouldn't care and would just go to Russia anyway, but even if he didn't NJ is still off the hook for the cap hit.

I still think they have no merit to stop this one. They let all those other I'm gonna play till 40+ year old deals be signed then there is nothing they can do. Some had injury history (Franzen) some play a hard game that will take its toll on the players body (Pronger). If they wanted to stop this they should of stepped up when DiPietro's deal was signed. It does not matter what happens to the last years in any of those contracts they are made to take advantage of the loophole in the CBA plain and simple. They failed to act and stop these contracts in the past so they cannot and should not be able to do it now.

Edited by dragonballgtz

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Who cares if it's a loop hole? The team is still taking a gamble. What if Kovy wants to play till he's 44 to get every dollar but he sucks after he's 37, he's eating up a lot of cap space at that point. Stop being so bitter, it's NJ's problem not ours.

But there is also the possibility Kovy 'retires' at 35 and signs a 10m/year contract with the KHL to finish his career there. In this scenario the Devils would never see the downside of this contract. This doesn't seem unlikely considering the rumors that he was going to the KHL this year.

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I still think they have no merit to stop this one. They let all those other I'm gonna play till 40+ year old deals be signed then there is nothing they can do. Some had injury history (Franzen) some play a hard game that will take its toll on the players body (Pronger). If they wanted to stop this they should of stepped up when DiPietro's deal was signed. It does not matter what happens to the last years in any of those contracts they are made to take advantage of the loophole in the CBA plain and simple. They failed to act and stop these contracts in the past so they cannot and should not be able to do it now.

Pronger's deal is a 35+ contract. The Flyers brass F'ed up and his cap hit will count against Philly until the expiration of his contract (unless they play the whole "injury-related" retirement scheme). As for DiPietro, his contract is 100% balanced from beginning to end, so neither his nor Pronger's are valid examples. Also, the tail-end of Franzen's contract really isn't that unreasonable. It's alot better than Zetterberg's, which is also way better than Hossa's and now Kovalchuk's.

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It's understandable that people would compare Kovalchuk's contract to Zetterberg's, but NJ has circumvented the cap more obviously than Detroit has. Below are the cap advantages of each players retirement by age at the beginning of the season (beginning at 35):

Zetterberg

35 2015-2016 $1,509,524

36 2016-2017 $1,497,917

37 2017-2018 $1,433,334

38 2018-2019 $1,016,667

39 2019-2020 $462,122

40 2020-2021 $0

Kovalchuk

35 2018-2019 $3,833,333

36 2019-2020 $3,500,000

37 2020-2021 $2,954,545

38 2021-2022 $2,270,833

39 2022-2023 $1,676,923

40 2023-2024 $1,167,857

41 2024-2025 $726,667

42 2025-2026 $340,625

43 2026-2027 $0

Choose whichever year you think they're most likely to retire. IMO, while both could be called circumvention, the gap between the two is large enough that Lamoriello's could be considered illegal while Holland's not.

Edit: I don't necessarily think it will or should be rejected, but I do think a line needs to be drawn. This is getting very close to crossing it.

Edited by Doggy

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He wasn't injury prone when he signed the deal.

True, but he was still just an average goalie at best. Even if he manages to stay healthy for the remainder of his contract it could still turn out to be a huge bust. He has never really lived up to the hype.

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My issue is this:

What's to stop a team from signing a player to a 30 year contract? Of course the easy answer is to say that is unreasonable, there is no way a player would play for that long, etc. However, where is the line drawn?

How reasonable is it to expect Kovalchuk might play until he is 44. Consider that there has only been 1 player in the last 36 years to play to that age. The answer is that there is a 99.99% chance he doesn't play out the contract, which to me, makes it an unreasonable one.

Edited by toby91_ca

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Guest EZBAKETHAGANGSTA

No, socialism is what we have now with the cap and parody in the league.

Epic lulz if intentional

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Guest EZBAKETHAGANGSTA

I find it interesting that so many have a problem with this contract but thought it was a wonderful creative way to sign "our" players. "Holland was a genius", and "Hank really gave us a discount with that 6M cap hit" when in fact Hank is making over 7Million per year for 9 years. It was a unique way to manipulate the cap and a smart move on Holland's part but Zetterberg did not, in my opinion give the Wings any discount because he will never fulfill the final 2 yaers and possibly even the 3.5M year.

Shhh... the Detroit Red Wings would never do something so sneaky. It's not like we smuggled away players in cars or anything :lol:.

While I understand the differences between the length of a 17 year deal and an 11 year deal, the fact remains that both will most probably not play out to their contract. People may be thinking the devils taking it too far, but in my mind it's a subjective matter. If you applauded Holland for finding a loophole earlier, I think it's unfair for one to criticize the New Jersey Devils for doing it on just a bigger scale. That's just how I see it though, I can totally understand why people would be upset. In my mind, if it's allowed more power to Lou L.

Edited by EZBAKETHAGANGSTA

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Next year when Seabrook and Doughty go RFA, Kenny should offer them both 30 year deals at 90 million dollars, 3 million dollar cap hit a piece for two of the better young d-men in the game!

Pay them both 8-9 a year for the first 9 years then ride out the deal with minimum contracts!!!!

Make it happen Kenny!!!!!

:ph34r:

Edited by stevkrause

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A quick suggested solution: ensure all $ paid to the player end up counting against the cap. This is how it works:

- If you sign a guy to a $50 million, 10 year contract, paying $5 million every year and he retires at the end of the 7th year, the cap would have been hit by $35 million (7 yrs at $5M per) and he would have been paid $35M, therefore, no issues.

- However, if you want to try and get sneaky and front load a deal, then you could get stuck with this: Kovalchuk as an example. He'll get paid $95M in the first 10 years of his 17 year contract. If he retires at the end of the years, the cap would have only been hit by $60 million ($6M cap hit per year). Therefore, they would need to take the $35M paid that didn't hit the cap and spread it over the remaining years of the initial contract (35/7yrs = $5M cap hit per year).

I understand you can't say you are stuck with a cap hit regardless of what happens because players will retire before the end of their deals and it's not fair, etc. However, if you choose to front load a contract and pay a guy all kinds of $ up front, it should count against the cap at some point. If you want to sign a guy to a 15 year contract, fine, if you pay him $6 million every single year, no problem, if he retires early, no cap hit after he's gone. However, if you get cute and pay him almost everything upfront, if he retires early, you are stuck with a cap hit and no player.

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Next year when Seabrook and Doughty go RFA, Kenny should offer them both 30 year deals at 90 million dollars, 3 million dollar cap hit a piece for two of the better young d-men in the game!

Pay them both 8-9 a year for the first 9 years then ride out the deal with minimum contracts!!!!

Make it happen Kenny!!!!!

:ph34r:

I realise you're kdding around. But players like Doughty don't become RFA's unless they don't like the team they play for.

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I realise you're kdding around. But players like Doughty don't become RFA's unless they don't like the team they play for.

If you realize I'm kidding, then take it for what it is... don't take it literal, come join me in make-believe-land, it's fun here and it gets you through until training camp starts!

:beerbuddy: :beerbuddy: :beerbuddy:

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- However, if you want to try and get sneaky and front load a deal, then you could get stuck with this: Kovalchuk as an example. He'll get paid $95M in the first 10 years of his 17 year contract. If he retires at the end of the years, the cap would have only been hit by $60 million ($6M cap hit per year). Therefore, they would need to take the $35M paid that didn't hit the cap and spread it over the remaining years of the initial contract (35/7yrs = $5M cap hit per year).

I might even take it one step further and implement a rule stating that any player's cap hit may not be any less than X% of their salary in any given year - maybe 75% or 66%.

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socialism is what we have now with the cap and parody in the league.

Yet, you cry for more regulation, not less. You want to close even more aspects of the market, not open them. Who are you to tell NJ how to spend their money? What's it to you if they sign him until he's 34, 44, or 54? (In retrospect, Illitch could have saved quite a bit of money with a long term Chelios deal and put that money somewhere else!)

If that's a risk NJ is willing to take, then who are you to ask for more impedance on their sovereignty as a business entity?

NJ has had a great franchise for many years, and cannot reap the fruits of their own labor, the rewards they deserve for their hard work. Instead, they have to give their hard earned money to ill concieved, unorganized franchises in rediculous southern markets, and are only allowed to spend what a governning body has centrally planned they can spend.

Yet, this doesn't satisfy you. You want to impose more rules on business owners and how they can go about acguiring their assests.

Central planning and overegulation. I repeat; Spoken like a true Socialist.

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IMO, I don't have a problem with the uber-length contracts. If it works as intended, then it's a great signing by the team's GM. If it backfires, they're the ones that have to live with it.

Exactly.

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