It seemed that the 15 year contract signed by Rick Dipietro on September 12, 2006 had set a trend, as more and more teams started signing their star players to long term contracts for over a decade. It seemed like a good idea, as teams would get to keep their star players for the length of their careers with no worries of losing them to free agency. It seemed like an even better idea to some GM's, who realized the potential these long term contracts had at lowering a cap hit for a player.
General managers began handing out extremely front loaded contracts, so that after the first 6 or 7 years, when a player would still be at his best, he made most of the money from the contract. Then, if he wished, he could retire and have lost very little of his money. The league began investigating these contracts last year, particularly the contracts signed by Marian Hossa and Chris Pronger. They determined those contracts to be legitimate, however, and let them stand.
Yesterday, the New Jersey Devils GM Lou Lamoriello tried the same thing with Ilya Kovalchuk, signing him to an astounding 17 year contract worth $102 million. This would mean Kovalchuk could potentially be ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Faiz-Ali Virji
The NHL Finally Gets It Right: Ilya Kovalchuk Contract Rejected
July 20th, 2010 by Faiz-Ali Virji Leave a reply »
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