Just when it appeared to be all over and behind us, the Ilya Kovalchuk free agency saga took another absurd turn on Tuesday night. Hours after the New Jersey Devils held a press conference to officially announce the signing of Kovalchuk's record 17-year contract, TSN reported that the NHL has rejected the deal for salary cap circumvention.
The contract, which would have paid Kovalchuk $102 million over the 17 years, was heavily front-loaded (like many of the double-digit year contracts signed over the years) to create a smaller salary cap figure (total dollars divided by total years). As previously constructed, the deal would have carried a $6 million per year cap hit, which is quite small for one of the NHL's best and most dangerous goal-scorers.
It also would have kept him under contract until his 44th birthday after the 2026-27 season.
TSN's Darren Dreger says that the deal was rejected "because the NHL doesn't believe either the player or the Devils expected he would be playing near end of deal."
Sportsnet's Nick Kypreos reports, via Twitter, that the NHL considers it a "retirement contract," claims it "artificially drops the salary cap hit," and is "too overloaded" for the first 10 years.
Earlier Tuesday, Devils GM Lou Lamoriello revealed that he "might agree" that something is wrong with such a contract in theory and that he "absolutely" rolled his eyes at the 17-year deal, but pointed out that it's within the rules of the CBA. He also seemed to imply that it was the team's ownership, perhaps more than Lamoriello, that pushed for the massive deal.
The NHL had previously investigated contracts signed by Marian Hossa (12 years) and Chris Pronger (seven years at the age of 35) last offseason, but did not reject them. In May, 2008, the NHL did reject Martin Erat's contract extension with the Nashville Predators. The two sides eventually came to an agreement on a seven-year, $31.5 million deal.
The Devils and Kovalchuk can agree to a new deal that meets the NHL's approval, or the NHLPA can file a grievance in defense of the contract. If that were to occur, Dreger notes that the contract would be dead until an arbitrator ruled otherwise.
In the end, you have to expect the two sides to work out a new deal, but now it's simply a matter of continuing the waiting game for the situation to be resolved.
