In Perpetuity

Being a lawyer (by training if not actual practice) I have an affinity for contract terminology. Part of me would love to look at some player contracts and see what types of protections and conditions are affiliated with their contracts. How they decide to structure payment, etc. Lately, it's NHL contracts that have become increasingly interesting, mostly because they have become increasingly long.

A few years back when Rick DiPietro signed a 12 year contract everyone thought that the Islanders were crazy to sign an injury-prone, though young, goaltender to such a long deal. In this day and age few players ever stick with a club for that long. But since then multiple stars have signed these long term deals as they help the clubs manage payroll in the salary cap era. This has gone on right up to Ilya Kovalchuk signing a 17 year deal with the Devils yesterday. 17 years?? To quote WWE star the Miz, "Really?? Really??"

Forget the fact that there is zero chance that Kovy stays with New Jersey for 17 years, is he even going to be playing in 17 years? He'll be 44. Granted there are guys that play into their 40's (Mark Recchi will be 42 when we laces up for the Bruins next season) but they are few and far between. All it takes is one serious injury and 27 years old becomes retirement. Now should Kovalchuk start of a downward slide in 5 years, trying to trade him may become problematic if there are still 7 years left on his deal whether he's owed a lot of money or not.

It seems absurd to me to make these time commitments to players from a team perspective. I know that the Devils don't intend for Kovalchuk to be around for 17 years. They can't be that stupid but I wonder if the threat of the KHL doesn't play in here because now Kovy is stuck in the NHL for the rest of his playing days and I know some KHL teams were making offers to him while he was mulling deals from LA and NJ. I think teams are losing flexibility with these long deals and paying players on performance they have not earned. Look at Chicago who is saddled with long deals to Toews, Kane, and Hossa and had to jettison some major pieces to their Stanley Cup winning team in order to stay within the cap. It had an almost Florida Marlins feel to it watching Byfuglien and Ladd (and Patrick Sharp probably going as well) getting traded so quickly after the season was over.

I know that the cap and the collective bargaining agreement make the owners sign these contracts but you have to wonder who will be hurting the most 5 or even 10 years from now when some of these guys are playing out contracts they ceased to be worthy of years before and teams are stuck putting them on the ice night after night because they can't trade them and don't have the money for a buy-out. Only time will tell.