Rejected!!

Couple of days late with this one, but school has been starting, you guys understand. Anywho, our favorite Russian diva has been back in the news after the arbitration hearing for Ilya Kovalchuk sided with the NHL on Monday. Now, I know that there are a lot of people upset about this whole thing, most of them are probably Devils fans, but I am personally dancing about this decision! I mean, come on, when the GM of the team says that he doesn't believe that contracts like this should even exist during a press conference to celebrate the contract like that, then you know that this thing shouldn't really be able to hold up to any kind of smell test.

Here is the main reason that I think that this is a good thing. As most hockey fans know, the current collective bargaining agreement will end after the 2011-2012 NHL season. Many people have already feared that there will be another lockout, something that players have not helped along with all the rumors of Donald Fehr being tapped by the players to lead the player's union into negotiations. Money is always the issue in these, not that anybody involved in the negotiations really need more money, and you know that these types of mega-long term, front loaded contracts were going to be a huge issue. The league now has a precedent on their side that these sorts of things won't fly. They can come to the bargaining table already knowing that they have won that argument. If the players try to push too hard for that, they will lose badly. If this had gone the other way around, the players could just argue that it was allowed in the last CBA, and they wanted to make sure that it stayed that way. Now, all that will really happen is some kind of clarification.

This will pave the way, in my opinion, for an NBA-like maximum contract. If you aren't sure of what those are, just look at Lebron James' current contract with the Heat, and you will see what I mean. It would be a fantastic thing for the NHL to put in a Max contract that says the most years that you can have on a contract is 7 years, (6 in the NBA). Then, a good compromise as far as the whole front loading of contracts, could that the league says a player may only front load their contract a certain amount, not how nutty the whole thing was with Kovy, so that there can be a slight manipulation of the salary cap, instead of the attempt to completely avoid it as it happened with Kovy. A possible restriction on salaries based off of a player's age could be a good idea as well, also something that happens in the NBA. Bettman SHOULD know about all that, as he did come from the NBA, but of course, he remains absolutely incompetent.

All in all, a big win for the NHL and its fans. This is something that may help to prevent a work stoppage in a couple of years. One last word to Mr. Kovy. I know you really, really wanted to be the highest paid player in the NHL after this. Well, then the last thing that you would really need to do before being the highest paid player is to actually be better than the current highest paid players, which you are not.

Ilya Kovalchuk, the Final Chapter!!....or is it?

Well, the drama was played out, the teams made all of their pitches, and we finally know that Ilya Kovalcuk, the prize of this year's NHL Free Agent group, has signed with the New Jersey Devils for a record contract. Now, if you thought that Marian Hossa's deal was crazy, then you'll pretty much go nuts yourself when you hear what Kovy's deal ended up being. Kovy signed a 17, yes 17, year deal, worth $102 million.

Now, in my humble opinion, this is probably the dumbest contract ever offered in the history of contracts. Obviously, the Devils are happy with it because they get their man, and don't really have to go to any lengths to familiarize him with the team as he played there from the trade deadline to the end of the season. So that makes a bit of sense. The big problem with this is two-fold. One, do you honestly expect this guy to play out the entirety of this contract? He's 27 now, which means he'll be well out of his prime by the time that he still has 9 years LEFT on his contract. At that point, you'll be paying a 35 + year old man 11.5 million dollars! Secondly, this sets a very unhealthy precedent for the rest of the upcoming superstar free agents. Professional athletes are a lot like 5 year old boys. They see that Tommy across the street has a super awesome new bike, and they want one, too. So now that Ilya across the street has a ridiculously long and lucrative deal, every single other player is going to want this, too. The players have gone from wanting insane amount of money and being locked out during a CBA year, to wanting still pretty large sums of money, but for an insane time period on a contract. I do not look forward to the next CBA year, because I don't want another lockout canceled season! CapGeek has a great run down of Kovy's salary and how it is broken down. Take a look!

Now, the rest of the problems here lie with the Devils. If you take a look at the Devil's salary for this coming season, you will probably notice a pretty big problem. The Devils are currently 2.52 million dollars over the league salary cap. Which means they need to do something to get under it. So, they have to either trade somebody, or hope that some of their players are able to clear waivers and send them down to the AHL. It seems that most people believe that the Devils are going to try and trade Zach Parise, as he has basically been told that he will never be the teams #1 left wing. That would do it, as his cap hit, this year, is 5 million bucks. The next problem with the Devils is going to lie in the long term. Yeah, sure you, have Kovy now, and let's pretend that, by some miracle, they actually manage to make sure that Parise stays through this year. By the time they have anybody else as a free agent that they want to keep, they pretty much won't be able to, because Kovy's salary is going to jump up to 11.5 million bucks each year after year #2 of his contract. They have, pretty much, mortgaged the team's future. Their future is going to be Ilya Kovalchuk. No, we're not talking a Miami Heat situation, they have 3 superstars that they managed to keep under the cap, not just 1. The Devils will then, essentially, turn into the Atlanta Thrashers who did the exact same thing. Threw a ton of money at Kovy, and then weren't able to keep any of their other stars because Kovy ate up too much money.

But what does Kovy care? He wanted a record contract to beat Ovechkin's, and he got it. What he'll be measured by is pretty simple. Once Ovechkin signed his big deal, he went out and lead the league in goals, scoring 65 by the end of the 2008 season. Will Kovy do something similar, or will he fall into the trap that a lot of players do, and relax? Ahh, the get paid and then take the season off syndrome can strike hard, but I suppose we'll see. Regardless, this is a deal that is bad for all hockey fans but 1, Ilya Kovalchuk. I guess we'll see what types of insane deals come up next offseason as well, because this could get seriously ugly.

Now, I know that A-Mac has some opinions on this as well, and I want to hear them! Post your Kovy stuff A-Mac!!

**Update: Yesterday, the NHL rejected Kovalchuk's deal! Meaning that he is now a free agent again! We will try and keep tabs on what things are happening and where Kovy lands.....again.