Someone mentioned the fact that Eklund sucks in a rep point. I'm not going to argue with that. Of course Eklund sucks. More to the point? This Kovalchuk thing has me not caring where the info is coming from. I'm devouring Eklund like he's Edward R Murrow. It's fucking AWFUL. I'm obsessed. And it's not even a case of "wah wah I just wish he'd sign somewhere so i can stop reading." I'm terrified he is going to sign with LA, I'd be heartbroken at this point.
Pierre LeBrun's five suggestions to improve the NHL. 1. Change the start date of free agency 2. No hockey past May 31 3. Ban the All-Star Game 4. Hold the NHL awards and draft in the same town 5. Commit to the Olympics and bring back the World Cup of Hockey for the two-year interval between Games I generally agree with all five suggestions. LeBrun goes on further about the All-Star game, saying: I'm really all for #2 and # 5. I think if Bettman and the NHL move away from international hockey it will only hurt the brand. Ice Hockey is so wide-spread and is a lot like Soccer when you look at all the quality leagues around that world that produce quality talent for the NHL and their national teams. Any one of the top 10 teams in the world can beat each other on any given night in international hockey. You won't find that in Basketball, Baseball, or Football.
Yeah I don't think the All-Star game is a big deal one way or another. It's a long season and if the league wants to give its players a weekend off, I have no problem with that. rankly, I like the Skills Competition more. The game is a silly waste of time, but the skills comp lets you see the All Stars in a different light. I'd love to see the players vote for the all stars in categories. Take the top 10 fastest skaters voted by the players and have that as a competition. Same with shot accuracy, power, etc. ESPN says Kovalchuk is gonna be a Devil again. They have less than 4 mil of cap space so I have no idea how they go forward, but I'm guessing some Devs are gonna be on the trade market or bought out shortly.
KKKOOOOVVVVYYYYY!!!!!!!!! Lou has to get Zubrus/White/Salvador off the books. We need to get rid of Rolston too, but that's going to be tougher. I could not be happier about this, I had nearly given up hope. Louuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Fuck Yeah!! I'd pretty much given up hope on getting him back too. Anybody hear anything as far as the terms of the deal? Should be interesting to see what he signed for considering he gave up something like 12 years, 100 mil from Atlanta. Hopefully with a full year in NJ under his belt, he'll be able to settle down a little and not play like he needs to score all by himself so much, especially come playoff time.
No official word yet. It's PROBABLY 7 years for 60 mil, though I'm hoping it's this: There is a report coming out of Russia... a newspaper is claming that Ilya's mom says he's going to be getting 17 years for 100 mil. That's a cap hit of 5.8 mil which is VERY reasonable. Since he's under 35, it's also a cap hit that comes off the books whenever he retires. The deal is also VERY frontloaded, so he'd be getting the money he wants without handcuffing the team for the next 10 years. I love it either way.
According to ESPN, it's 17 years worth up to $150 million. I don't know how much of that would be based on incentives or if that would even affect the cap hit, but that comes out to around 8.8 mil per year. That's up in Crosby/Malkin/Ovie territory and I'd be really surprised if Lou committed that much of the cap to one player, especially since they'll need to resign Parise when his deal is up after next season. NJ.com has it pegged alot closer to 100 mil, which like you said would be an absolute godsend.
It wouldn't let me edit, but just wanted to clarify. Word is now that it's worth slightly more than $100 mil. The 150 mil they were citing earlier is what he will have earned over his whole career at the end of this deal.
Enter Deadspin I admittedly know damn near nothing about the NHL these days (I can count on two hands, maybe one, the number of active players), but I found this headline and article interesting.
Holy shit this just never ends. The NHL rejected Kovalchuk's contract for salary cap circumvention. After approving the contracts of both Hossa and Pronger which were very similar. They NHL has no standing, this is insane and I hope it gets Bettman fired once and for all.
Serves them right for constructing a CBA that allowed a cap hit to be based on average salary over the life of the contract as opposed to a year-by-year figure. Bettman and the owners had a friggin year plus to just bring this issue up once when they were cramming this thing down the players' throats and apparently it never took. Look, a 17 year deal is ridiculous and if it stands it doesn't set a very good precedent for the league, but it's not illegal under the current system. It's merely exploiting the stupidity of the guys who left that loophole open. My money's on the Devils winning the arbitration and all hell breaking loose in a few years when the league tries to change that policy with the new CBA.
Again, I'll start by saying I'm ill-informed on the happenings of the NHL, but this baffles me. How did a CBA get constructed in this way in the first place? I'm pretty sure the NFL, MLB, and NBA all have rules that year-to-year salaries cannot differ by more than 15-20%, if my memory serves me right. How the NHL doesn't have something similar in place is beyond me. That being said, there's no way this stands. Like the previous poster said, New Jersey took advantage of a shitty loophole. Good on them.
Here is how things actually stand from what I've been able to gather. The NHLPA has 5 days to decide whether or not to appeal the ruling. Using the contracts of Pronger, Hossa, Zetterberg and Luongo as precedents, there is almost no chance that appeal would lose, it would be unfair and selective practicing of rules they make up as they go along. HOWEVER. Here is the problem. If they NHLPA appeals, it would go to an arbitrator. The NHL doesn't have a special arbitrator selected for this type of issue, so they would have to hire one. That could take a month. The Devils need to know what their cap situation is going to be as soon as possible, and likely wouldn't be able to wait a month for the arbitrator to be selected, it would completely hinder their ability to build the rest of their team and get under the salary cap. So, Bettman is likely counting on them restructuring the deal. I've read reports suggesting that they would have to take 2 years off the back end and move money around so that he's making a mil a year for the final years of the contract and then Bettman would approve it because it would actually be identical to the structure of the Hossa deal. That would up the Devils cap hit by, i believe, 700k a year. A good amount. So.. you might be saying to yourself, Bettman did something he knows wouldn't hold up in court, but he also knows that he's likely to get his way because challenging it would be too costly to the Devils. Isn't that illegal? I don't know, but probably.
Now Lou knew the deal would be rejected? Intrigue! I have no idea who's in the right anymore. Is he stalling so he can try and move some pieces and create more cap room for a 12-15 year deal? Is he fucking with Bettman? I hope it's the latter, but I suspect the former. It seems like this deal was like him calling dibs on Ilya and getting him on board with the Devs, then promising to make room and pay Ilya the same money with fewer years once some more space could be created. Or more news will come out in an hour that once again proves that I know nothing.
This was Lou being forced by ownership to sign Ilya to one of the mammoth 'life' contracts when he is against them. I mean, in the press conference he flat out said he didn't like them, but it technically conformed to the rules in the CBA. This is nowhere near as cut and dry as you are making it out to be. First off, none of the contracts you mentioned were nearly as blatant. Apparently in the case of the Hossa contract, the league was warning they would veto it, and Hossa did an analysis on how a player declines over the years and how that had affected their salaries, using players similar to himself. The contract was based on those numbers. Also, Hossa's salary peaked at 7.9 million for a 5.275 cap hit. Kovalchuk peaks at a 11.5 million for a 6 mil cap hit. Plus Hossa's contract declined at a much slower level than Kovalchuks, which levels off over 2 years to reach the minimum for 5 straight seasons. I haven't looked up Luongo's, but believe it declines much slower and more reasonably as well.
I've seen that argued before, that this "goes too far" or "aren't as blatant." But so what? You're going to allow contracts you think are bad, but not this one because it's a little worse? The NHL can philosophically draw a line in the sand, sure, but they can't do it legally. And lets look at Luongo's contract: 2010-2011 $10,000,000 2011-2012 $6,716,000 2012-2013 $6,714,000 2013-2014 $6,714,000 2014-2015 $6,714,000 2015-2016 $6,714,000 2016-2017 $6,714,000 2017-2018 $6,714,000 2018-2019 $3,382,000 2019-2020 $1,618,000 2020-2021 $1,000,000 2021-2022 $1,000,000 Luongo's cap hit for this whole deal is 5.333 mil, last season he made 10 mil. You can say this is ok but Kovalchuk's isn't? And Luongo's deal? It ends when he's 43. So the league accepted that he would be playing at 43 but Kovalchuk wouldn't? Clearly, Kovy isn't actually going to be playing when he's 44, but they can't say "these bad contracts are ok, but this one is just a little worse so we can't allow it"
Sure they can. The line has to be drawn somewhere. Otherwise the contracts will keep increasing. And there is a possibility that Bettman will use another CBA clause: 26.10 Investigations. (d) There shall be no limitation of time barring the investigation of a Circumvention by the Commissioner. If the NHLPA is planning to appeal, he might target every single one of those contracts Back to Luongo's contract, there's a pretty big difference. Luongo has 1 year at 10 mil and 3 years at the end that are 1 - 1.6 mil after several years at 6.7 mil. That can at least be argued will be due to decline and is a reasonable amount for a decent backup goalie. Is it a lie? Sure, but you can at least argue it. Kovalchuk had 5 years at the league min after a 5 or 6 years paying 11.5 mil. I cannot think of any justification that both sides intend to honour those last 5 years. Another interesting part I hadn't heard about before today: <a class="postlink" href="http://www.jewelsfromthecrown.com/2010/7/20/1579849/your-high-level-nhl-person-should" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.jewelsfromthecrown.com/2010/ ... son-should</a> Same article that previous bit about investigations came from. Basically, everyone is assuming the Devils and Kovalchuk will just renogotiate the contract to similar to the Hossa deal. Apparently they can't. Either they win in arbitration and the contract stands, or the contract is void and they are punished a minimum of $1 mil, which also applies against the cap. And also screws up their ability to sign Kovalchuk. This is just going to get more interesting.
Here's the thing, there is proof that both sides intend to honor those last 5 years: they both signed a contract saying so. The burden of proof is on the league to show they did so disingenuously. That is an LA Kings blog, dude. It's written by a fan who's still pissed they didn't get him themselves. You're right though about it getting more interesting, what do you think would happen if Bettman goes back and voids the old contracts? Pronger and Hossa? Both played in the fucking Cup finals last year. What does it mean for the NHL if they have to go back and say "umm, those players were playing without real contracts." What about the teams that they beat on the way their? And what would the players union do if suddenly the NHL started voiding contracts left and right? Bettman is clearly playing with fire here. If they go back and void the Hossa, Pronger, Luongo, Richards, Zetterberg and Franzen deals, we won't have to worry about a lockout in 2012, the players will strike. Are these contracts good? No, not at all, they're terrible for the league. Should the NHL have put their foot down after the Luongo contract? Yes, absolutely, they shouldn't have let this get started. Anyone who says that the NHL shouldn't have expected this to happen once they allowed that first contract is either a liar, or an idiot. The basic argument here is this: Can the NHL say "These contracts are bad, but we allowed them. Because the Kovalchuk contract is a little worse, we won't allow it?" I really don't think an arbitrator will accept that argument. I read a report (PS: take this with a large grain of salt, it was on the HF Boards, sadly more reliable than Eklund but not by much) that said that Bettman told the GMs at a BOG meeting this season that they were going to close this loophole in 2012, but that there is nothing that there is nothing that can be done about these contracts before then. If that's true, it means Lamoriello essentially had blessing to write this thing and the NHL really has no case. But again, who knows if that's true? Ohh, and as far as the penalties go, supposedly Bettman told Lou that the NHL isn't going to impose any. Again, this is a report of a report of a report. This is also a Devils team that has taken the league to court before (over the Jim Shoenfeld suspension in the playoffs, the infamous "you fell and you know it you fat pig, have another donut!" Don Koharsky incident.) I'm afraid that if the arbitrator rules for the NHL, Lou goes to court against the league. You want to see things get messy? The courts could wipe their asses with the CBA.
Actually, it may when you look at it a little differently. Essentially, the other contracts that this now-rejected deal has been compared to do not circumvent the system as extremely as the Kovalchuk deal did. I'll leave it to Gabe Desjardins and his solid but simple analysis: Why Ilya Kovalchuk's contract was rejected Basically, the Devils pushed the NHL to the edge where if it didn't call bullshit the de-escalating contract loophole would be officially out of control. The last paragraph of the quote there sums it up perfectly. The other extreme deals saved some money for the teams, but this deal saved too much money and was too obvious of a circumvention. Also, GM Lou Lamoriello's comments were interested. He knows that ownership wants to keep Kovalchuk but at this cost you can kind of see that he knows hes getting fucked long term. One theory flying around is that he knew this deal might be rejected which is why he's deflecting salary questions to ownership in this case. If Kovalchuk was smart he would go to the Kings now on a lesser deal and have a better chance of winning. He's so over-valued it's ridiculous. Such a one way player can only do so much.
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Luongo+year+contract+deal+under+investigation/3378778/story.html Looks like there is a real possibility of them throwing out some of the contracts that were already approved