Ilya Kovalchuk Contract: Will It Be Approved?

Ilya Kovalchuk has waited for a long time to get his contract approved. The first time he got a contract the league rejected it because it was salary cap circumvention. People were shocked because the league had allowed similar contracts that circumvented the cap like Marian Hossa's, Duncan Keith's, and a whole host of other players.

The theory behind these contracts is to pay a lot of money up front so that in the later years of the contract they get paid the league minimum. Of course, the contract is so long that nobody expects them to play for the league minimum.

However, the salary cap is calculated by dividing the total money amount by the number of years, thus getting an annual average cap hit. So if the player retires early, they paid more money but had more cap space, thus creating an advantage for rich teams.

When word broke of his new 15-year $100 million contract, I thought there is no way in hell the NHL approves this. This is just two years and $2 million less. They are still cheating.

To really decide whether or not this is true, Sportsnet got the exclusive numbers that the NHL received from the Devils. 

Here are the salary numbers:

2010-$6 million

2011-$6 million

2012-$11 million

2013-$11.3 million

2014-$11.3 million

2015-$11.6 million

2016-$11.8 million

2017-$10 million

2018-$7 million

2019-$4 million

2020-$1 million

2021-$1 million

2022-$1 million

2023-$3 million

2024-$4 million

So with these numbers the annual cap hit is $6.66 million, the number of the Devil but that's just a coincidence. 

What bugs me is the number of years the average salary is below the cap hit. I took the salary up to each and every year and divided it by the number of years into the contract to see what the cap hit would be on an individual contract if the contract was that long.

2010 Average salary=$6 million 

2011 Average salary=$6 million

2012 Average salary=$7.67 million

2013 Average salary=$8.575 million

2014 Average salary=$9.12 million

2015 Average salary=$9.53 million

2016 Average salary=$9.86 million

2017 Average salary=$9.88 million

2018 Average salary=$9.56 million

2019 Average salary=$9 million

2020 Average salary=$8.27 million

2021 Average salary=$7.67 million

2022 Average salary=$7.15 million

2023 Average salary=$6.86 million

2024 Average salary=$6.66 million

As you see by this chart, the average salary is only at or below the cap hit in the final year and the first two years. To be fair there are other years where the average yearly salary is not that much more than the cap hit, but you get the idea.

The point is this is clearly cap circumvention. If Kovalchuk retires at the age of 37 he is paid an average salary of $9 million but the cap hit would only have been $6.66 million. If he retires earlier the average salary is even higher. The odds of him playing until he is 42 is very low, so I think we can safely conclude this is a blatant attempt at circumventing the cap.

My advice to Kovalchuk is to go to Russia; they're the only ones who should pay you this much. This contract should be void. Here's to hoping the moderators don't modify the numbers below 10 in such a way that I cannot see the charts properly.