NHL News: The Kovalchuk Saga Isn't Over Yet

Wow…I don’t even know what to say. If Lamoriello wore a cap, he’d throw it to the ground.

What a joke!!!

ahahahahahahaha

he will probably stay with the devils but they will just have to redo the contract

so what will end up happening is the devils will take a mil off the high salaries, move money to the end of the deal and push it again.

I can feel it. This will only push the players association away from the leauge.

for the record I think the kovy deal is BS and we all knew it yesterday, but it’s BS for the nhl to have allowed some of these deals that were also clearly intended to lower AAV’s and call this one out.

Well now, this is nice.

It was bound to happen. I was just explaining how this contract was illegal to a friend of mine today. Now I want to let him know I was right :)

They are now seriously screwed.

Dont think Im adding much to this discussion, but it seems the only difference between this contract and prior heavily-front-loaded contracts is that Lemonjello acknowledged that it stunk. That may have backed the NHL into a corner and it took the opportunity. I can’t imagine the NHL would have taken this action against one of their biggest supporters in the GM ranks lightly.

Awesome. Nothing else to say really

Meh the players’ association is going to have a good case if they decide to appeal. All of the precedent isin the contract’s favor

All else equal, Kovy’s contract should have been upheld.

However, all else is not equal. First off, these contracts are under more scrutiny now since the Pronger and Hossa contracts. While, I think there were grumblings about these contracts before, the Pronger and Hossa deals seem to have put the dislike with this tactic over some threshold value where the NHL felt any backlash from voiding the deal would be minimized. I think the NHL could argue that they are learning from past mistakes (i.e. not voiding) and making improvements designed to better the game. Second and most important, Kovy and his agent were LeBron-esque during this process. So, he deserves to get screwed.

the NHL is right on this one but its time for the players to negotiate a new deal and to raise the salary cap. the point with the cap is that big market clubs don’t buy out smaller markets. that is definitely the case here. a smaller market couldn’t afford to structure a contract like this so it throws the edge to the clubs with sweet cable deals and such.

sounds to me like this is a case of GMs gnawing away at the edges of legality and the league just came in and drew a line in the sand…it was bound to happen sooner or later.

but yea, sounds like either Kovy or the Devils are out of it now. Can’t see NJ raising their Cap and Kovy is NOT going to get the money he wants when it forces a club to sacrifice building a cup contender. who can win a cup around Kovy making that much money? selfish. just like his playing style.

Good for the NHL… it’s about time… and there is no way that this deal wasn’t constructed in order for kovy to retire when his contract hit league min. even as many have said, prongers is the same, but prongers getting league min for 2 years, not 7, which is the length of prongers entire contract… I say excellent job, about time, i would love to see them have to sign him to a 10 year 102 mil contract, that will bind them for years to come…

Btw as per the rules, kovy is still a devil for 5 more days. If devils/nhlpa etc file a grievance he remains a devil until the decision is finalized. As of right now he is a devil and cannot talk to other teams about a contract. At least that’s how the rules came across to me when I read it last night, might be a bit off.

I don’t care where Kovi ends up. But the Cap is just plain silly. Do we really need 32 teams? Is it worth losing players to other leagues because of Cap issues. Every team tries to game teh Cap. What they are going to start talking about is what is too far. The problem is that players have to take less and teams can’t keep talent, even home grown talent. [Think about Ranger issues 4 or 5 years down the road if all of the prospects pan out.] Enough already! Let’s play more games against less team.

I see three major distinguishing factors between this deal and its predecesor illegal deals:

1.) its for 17 years
2.) by the end of the deal, in all likelihood, Kovy would be making less than league minimum
3.) I think that more than any of the other deals, another team (here the Kings) can claim that, but for an illegal cap avoiding deal, they would have signed Kovy.