Post by NHLJets2point0 on Aug 20, 2012 1:24:43 GMT -5
What’s Next, N.H.L. Bidders? A 20-Year Contract?
slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/0....act/#more-47248
Paul Bereswill/Getty ImagesZach Parise and Kings goalie Jonathan Quick now have more in common: big, long-term contracts.
Just as the N.H.L. takes its turn in the line of lockout-mania, following the N.F.L. and N.B.A. to that well-worn labor dispute podium to howl that it needs economic relief from the players union, it prepared for this fight by doing what it does best. That is, throw gigantic and ridiculously long contracts at available free agents.
Yes, N.H.L. franchises are in dire financial straits, they will tell you, because of huge, onerous player contracts like the ones Minnesota just showered on Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. This is why the owners want a new collective bargaining agreement.
The Wild was not formerly a player in most discussions involving 13-year, $98 million contracts, but they now have twin ones. Only a few months ago, the Wild owner Craig Leipold told The Minneapolis Star-Tribune: “We’re not making money, and that’s one reason we need to fix our system. We need to fix how much we’re spending right now.”
By “fix,” we are assuming at the time Leipold did not mean he wanted to spend more. But that’s exactly what he did. That’s because the N.H.L. has gotten itself into an absurd contract rat race of its own making. It gets around the restrictions of the salary cap by stretching contracts over an absurd number of years. The next crop of superstars might be getting paid into their 50s.
Greg Wyshynski writes on Yahoo.com that there are 17 players with contracts spanning nine years or longer. Sidney Crosby just signed one of those with the Penguins, and the Kings just lavished one on goalie Jonathan Quick.
While those might be understandable — when healthy, Crosby is the game’s best player, and Quick just snared the Kings a Stanley Cup — they are still incredibly risky. Crosby’s concussion history should make any team nervous about the long term. And as good as Quick may be, people were that high on Roberto Luongo once, and his 12-year contract signed in 2010 with Vancouver is an unbearable albatross now that it has soured on him. The team would love to trade him and hand the job to Cory Schneider, but Luongo’s contract makes it nearly impossible.
More teams have burdened themselves with immovable assets, which are lovely when they are all bright and shiny like Parise and Suter but turn into handcuffs when things turn bad. Clearly, no one learned anything from the first of these mammoth deals to go bad, the 15-year-deal the Islanders signed in 2006 with goalie Rick DiPietro, who almost instantly turned into an injury-riddled mess.
Two years ago, when the N.H.L. pitched a mini-fit over Ilya Kovalchuk’s beyond-absurd 17-year deal with the Devils — the franchise was fined and forced to rework it — it seemed as if the league was trying to curb the trend, which is clearly designed to circumvent the salary cap by stretching the cap hits over a longer span. But the mini-fit ended there. And the contracts just kept growing.
Remember that the next time owners like Leipold demand economic relief from the “system.” They are asking for economic relief from their own crazy decisions.
slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/0....act/#more-47248
Paul Bereswill/Getty ImagesZach Parise and Kings goalie Jonathan Quick now have more in common: big, long-term contracts.
Just as the N.H.L. takes its turn in the line of lockout-mania, following the N.F.L. and N.B.A. to that well-worn labor dispute podium to howl that it needs economic relief from the players union, it prepared for this fight by doing what it does best. That is, throw gigantic and ridiculously long contracts at available free agents.
Yes, N.H.L. franchises are in dire financial straits, they will tell you, because of huge, onerous player contracts like the ones Minnesota just showered on Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. This is why the owners want a new collective bargaining agreement.
The Wild was not formerly a player in most discussions involving 13-year, $98 million contracts, but they now have twin ones. Only a few months ago, the Wild owner Craig Leipold told The Minneapolis Star-Tribune: “We’re not making money, and that’s one reason we need to fix our system. We need to fix how much we’re spending right now.”
By “fix,” we are assuming at the time Leipold did not mean he wanted to spend more. But that’s exactly what he did. That’s because the N.H.L. has gotten itself into an absurd contract rat race of its own making. It gets around the restrictions of the salary cap by stretching contracts over an absurd number of years. The next crop of superstars might be getting paid into their 50s.
Greg Wyshynski writes on Yahoo.com that there are 17 players with contracts spanning nine years or longer. Sidney Crosby just signed one of those with the Penguins, and the Kings just lavished one on goalie Jonathan Quick.
While those might be understandable — when healthy, Crosby is the game’s best player, and Quick just snared the Kings a Stanley Cup — they are still incredibly risky. Crosby’s concussion history should make any team nervous about the long term. And as good as Quick may be, people were that high on Roberto Luongo once, and his 12-year contract signed in 2010 with Vancouver is an unbearable albatross now that it has soured on him. The team would love to trade him and hand the job to Cory Schneider, but Luongo’s contract makes it nearly impossible.
More teams have burdened themselves with immovable assets, which are lovely when they are all bright and shiny like Parise and Suter but turn into handcuffs when things turn bad. Clearly, no one learned anything from the first of these mammoth deals to go bad, the 15-year-deal the Islanders signed in 2006 with goalie Rick DiPietro, who almost instantly turned into an injury-riddled mess.
Two years ago, when the N.H.L. pitched a mini-fit over Ilya Kovalchuk’s beyond-absurd 17-year deal with the Devils — the franchise was fined and forced to rework it — it seemed as if the league was trying to curb the trend, which is clearly designed to circumvent the salary cap by stretching the cap hits over a longer span. But the mini-fit ended there. And the contracts just kept growing.
Remember that the next time owners like Leipold demand economic relief from the “system.” They are asking for economic relief from their own crazy decisions.
