Ilya Kovalchuk To Sign a 15-Year, $100 Million Contract

Pending league approval, Ilya Kovalchuk and the New Jersey Devils appear close to finalizing a deal worth $100 million over 15 years. This is the second attempt at a contract between the two sides after the first was rejected by the NHL.

For those of you not aware of my stance on these long-term NHL contracts, let me reiterate: I am sick of them. They let you pay ridiculous amounts of money early on in the contract and the league minimum in the later years.

According to the CBA, the cap hit is the average amount of money paid per year over the length of the contract, so the teams get a lower cap hit. This means that if the player retires before the last several years of the contract, then they were actually paid more money than the cap hit the team suffered. 

Examples of such contracts are Marian Hossa, Roberto Luongo, and Henrik Zetterberg. There are more, but what amazes me is that Commissioner Gary Bettman is looking into all of them except the Detroit Red Wings' players who received most of these ridiculous contracts. 

The argument to be made in their defense is that nobody knows if they will retire before their contract expires. I do not like this defense because when you are going to be in your 40s when your contract expires, don't tell me you plan to play out your contract. That's insane.

I had assumed the league approved a lot of these contracts. But in reality they have been reviewing these contracts ever since they were signed. The only problem is that the Marian Hossa contract is already a year in, and the Blackhawks have already hoisted the Stanley Cup. What can they realistically do there? Take away draft picks?

I am a man who does not often defend Gary Bettman, but this decision to look into these contracts has my full and unconditional support. This means that he will clamp down on these contracts in the future, and definitely address this loophole in the next CBA.

That means teams can only exploit this loophole for two more years, after which point the new CBA may destroy these teams' cap situations for years to come.

So why is Bettman allowing the framework for a 15-year, $100 million contract for Ilya Kovalchuk? Is it true he has not yet approved it but the framework was accepted?

My assumption is the framework means the number of years and the amount of money paid in later years getting lower. So if Bettman approves this he may not be going against his principles. After all, if Kovalchuk is paid seven million in the first five years and approximately $6.5 million in the last 10 years, it would be very reasonable.

So why is the NHL taking five days to review it if they have accepted the framework? My guess is that they will look to see if there are any loopholes that can be exploited in the future. Also, since the Devils have angered the NHL, don't be surprised if they are doing this to bother the Devils a little bit.

They may say they are professional, but we can never fully eliminate personal feelings from business (I never believed Michael Corleone when he said "It's not personal, it's strictly business").

I would also like to point out the $6.66 million per year cap hit is the sign of the Devil according to many people's beliefs. It may just be a coincidence, or it may be Lou Lamoriello showing the world he was meant to be a Devil his whole life. After all, Lou sure sounds short for Lucifer.