Of course that made people ask the simple question:
Why now?
The answer to this is probably that Kovalchuk's contract is well over the 40 mark, a point where very few players continue to play (especially snipers who typically retire early: Bure, Naslund, Sundin).
Also, the NHL is aware Kovalchuk wanted $10M/year. If he plays 10-11 years and then retires, he'll have that.
A Better Way?
Of course there is a much easier way of dealing with these contracts. That is to institute a "maximum salary cap hit" for long term SPC. Any contract year's cap over 4 years would be subject to these maximums (that is to say a 36 year old signing a 4 year contract would not be impacted at all, but a 5 year contract would, but would only apply to the last year). Say $4M for players over 35, $2M for players over 37 and $1M for players over 39. However the sum of the contract would still be the same, so the difference would be applied to the years there there is no maximum:
| Proposed Cap Schedule | Current Cap Schedule |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $9.56 | $6.00 |
| $4.00 | $6.00 |
| $4.00 | $6.00 |
| $2.00 | $6.00 |
| $2.00 | $6.00 |
| $1.00 | $6.00 |
| $1.00 | $6.00 |
| $1.00 | $6.00 |
| $1.00 | $6.00 |
| =$102 | =$102 |
I'm sure others could see how it would affect players like Luongo and Hossa. But at least it would create a consistent system as opposed to this ad-hoc system full of surprises. All of the sudden these long terms contracts are worthless!
What will the NHL accept?
Obviously the Devils will go back the drawing board, however, I'm not sure how much cap space they can give up. I'm sure N.J and the NHL will take a lot about this over the next few days and a slightly modified contract will be approved (and this whole process will turn out to be a joke).
2 comments:
I think on the 4 million parts you're going against the 100 percent rule in the CBA, the minimum there has to be 4.78.
I'm not a CBA expert so I could be wrong.
I've updated the chart so it makes a bit more sense. The CBA rules are based on the "actual" salary. The schedule of payments I have made of not about how much the player is paid, but what sort of cap hit the team gets for those years. Currently teams are hit with the same cap in the last year of Kovalchuk's contract as they are in the first year. I am proposing adjusting the cap hit so that more of it goes on to the years the player will likely be playing (AKA not retired).
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