On July 1st or sometime before that New Jersey Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello got on the phone and gave a record breaking offer to an NHL star and the best unrestricted free agent since the lockout.
The player, a member of the Devils organization, Ilya Kovalchuk, was acquired from Atlanta in a near deadline deal last February. He had been with New Jersey for two months including the week they were spectators in the playoffs.
The offer, 17 years for $102 million, if signed would be the longest deal ever offered in the National Hockey League. The deal worked great for both parties. It kept the cap hit for New Jersey at $6 million a year. It also gave Kovalchuk job security as he would be getting paid til the age of 44.
The breakdown of the contract was a little unusual as over the last half dozen seasons he would only get paid $550,000 but he would make 95 million over the first 10 years of the deal.
Of course this deal would not be announced as done until July 20th as Kovalchuk played cat and mouse with the Kings who seemingly wanted him as much as a team that never made an offer. They never budged on their cap hit of $5 million a year or going past $80 million in total salary, but yet they gave Kovalchuk and his wife a nice mini vacation when they flew him out to wine and dine him but not dish out the big bucks to get the deal done.
Kovalchuk clearly had family pressure to sign with Los Angeles based on his wife’s aspirations to become a musical star, and I give him credit for trying to make that work, that shows you something about his character. He took his time and deep down he knew he would be returning to New Jersey so that’s what he did.
The official announcement came on the 20th of July, but true to his favorite number, Ilya knew on the 17th of the month that for the next 17 years he would be a Devil by agreeing to the contract I mentioned at the beginning of the story.
I was at work when I heard the news he was staying and I was jumping for joy. I couldn’t believe that they were giving him 17 years and loved it even more when I heard the cap hit was only $6 million. This meant the Devils would probably be able to extend Zach Parise as well, their other talented and popular forward.
This is where the story gets very grey.
The Devils scheduled a 1pm press conference at Prudential Center for Tuesday.
At the press conference, Lamoriello said some interesting things regarding the respect of the contract towards the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.
For those that don’t know these long contracts get around having star players get salary cap hits that would really lock a team from doing much else in regards to other top talents.
There have been many instances of these deals and the NHL never rejected one, despite the clear loophole in the agreement.
So Lamoriello at the press conference said he doesn’t believe these contracts belong and he scoffed at other deals like this and would scoff at this one too. He also said there is no breaking of rules and everything is done within the limits of the CBA, which is absolutely correct.
Later Tuesday night a report comes down which is eventually confirmed that the NHL is rejecting the contract signed by Kovalchuk, for its circumvention of the salary cap. Rumor also has it the NHL contacted the Devils saying they were likely to reject the deal prior to their press conference on Tuesday.
Did the Devils assume they wouldn’t reject it and not set a precedent for these large deals? I think so.
The quotes by Lamoriello seem to suggest he was against the deal and figured something like this was to happen. Which makes sense, because this is not a typical deal in the style of Lamoriello who is one of the hardest GMs to negotiate with in the NHL. This was clearly an owner’s deal looking to make a big splash. The Devils had a huge excitement over the team after their deal to get him last year as they saw a spike in ticket sales and that momentum clearly would be carried through to this upcoming season.
However, I don’t care what Lou thought because he needed to get out of the shell that he had been in pre lockout circa 2004 and he did the right thing in getting players like Anton Volchenkov and Johan Hedberg, who know Kovalchuk and are good friends with him. Lou may not have agreed with it but he went along with the deal and set it up perfectly.
So now we have the NHL saying this deal isn’t ethical but they never put anything into words. The Devils and the NHLPA will likely appeal and send this to arbitration
What are the NHLs arguing points other than just obvious logic in backing up their rejection of the contract? There has never been a rule or agreement on any of these contracts, and they have never once rejected these contracts.
Can the Devils restructure the deal giving Kovalchuk a little more on the back end of this deal to make them happier? Even though it is Kovalchuk’s number will he have to come down from the 17 years to a smaller number?
All these questions will be answered in time, within the next few days Ilya and the Devils will have to sit and wait. I believe Kovalchuk will be a Devil and the arbitration will rule in favor of the NHLPA as the NHL as no prior grounds or no solid rules for saying no to the contract. I feel Bettman knows this and is using this as a way to say to the GMs and owners to stop making these contracts because it is going to make it hard to negotiate in the CBA to add a clause preventing these in the future CBA after 2012/2013. He also is getting a lot of publicity for this as well which is always a good thing. The story was a top 5 on Sports Center on Tuesday evening.
Personally, I don’t like the contracts because Kovalchuk could walk away at age 39 after collecting close to $100 million and the Devils would be off the hook for $6 million in cap hit from years 13-17 of the contract (2022-2027). It’s a shrewd way of giving the team protection but most players realize if they are going to win they can’t take a large cap hit. Credit the players for wanting stability over larger contracts over shorter period of time. You have to credit New York Islanders General Manager, Garth Snow, for starting this trend by signing goaltender Rick DiPietro to a 15 year $45 million contract a few years back. Although he hasn’t played 15 games (joking on the number but he’s been hurt for pretty much the entire contract so far to date) the deal has a low cap hit and locks up the star of the team for a very long time.
If it was a publicity move by the NHL then awesome, if this was not the reason then I see no justification for making a man wait on his job. Especially since they have no real case based on the laws set forth in the CBA. I know its hard to think of it like that, but Kovalchuk is entitled to a living and the NHL is refusing to give him that opportunity right now, but hopefully for all parties this will work itself out, because the Devils want Kovalchuk and based on everything he has said Ilya Kovalchuk wants New Jersey.
(Editor's Note: The CBA has written that it is against the rules to purposely and knowingly sign a deal to circumnavigate the rules and guidelines stated in the CBA in order to circumvent the salary cap. It'd be like speeding and telling the officer that you took out your speedometer, thus you should not get a ticket.)
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