The Expected Result: Damien Cox totally wrong on Kovalchuk ruling

Toronto Star writer and guilty conscience of every Canadian hockey fan came back from his vacation today, just in time to pen a blog post on how an independant arbitrator would uphold Ilya Kovalchuk's 17-year, $102-million contract.

"Most don't expect that [arbitrator Richard Bloch to uphold the NHL's decision] to happen," Cox writes, "and instead it's likely Ilya Kovalchuk will officially become a New Jersey Devil, with his controversial 17-year, $102 million deal approved."

I fail to comprehend who "most" is referring to. If Cox has an extensive list of labour lawyers and union experts to quote and draw his conclusions from, well, all the best to him. The thing is that he doesn't, and his source list is likely made up of ex-players and former agents--former agents for a reason--who have read the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement as extensively as we have, and have no more insight into the matter as that braindead co-worker.

Using an all-encompassing term like "most" without quoting sufficient sources is what seperates real journalists from schmos who, already having made a career, just mail in every column and offer no differing opinion than the majority of 7pm-10pm sports fans.

That being said, in the unlikely event that Bloch does not overturn the NHL's decision, we're told by Cox, in the same column, that "it's believed the Los Angeles Kings would be first in line to try and sign him," even though Dean Lomardi, General Manager of the Kings says that his team "weren't in the the ballpark" with the deal that the Devils initially signed Kovalchuk to.

Toss in a couple of Tomas Kaberle rumours, also with no substantial evidence to back up his claims, as click-bait, and you have your typical Damien Cox column, including a close-to-but-not-exceeding-400 word count.

So, an hour or so after Bloch decided to prove Damien Cox wrong, Cox came out with an apologetic response piece, explaining the ramifications of this whole thing. Reading is not reccomended.

Lou Lamoriello criticizes the contract he signed Kovalchuk to

The long, arduous, Ilya Kovalchuk saga is over, thus launching the North American media into a feeding frenzy and is sure to become a long, arduous, Collective Bargaining Agreement saga.

Today it became official: An American General Manager signed a Russian player to an American team, but the consequences will be felt all across Canada, starting with the next work stoppage.

Barry Patchesky of Deadspin had a great post on the matter yesterday, noting that:

It's technically illegal to agree to deals that neither side has any intention of honoring to completion, but nothing came of those investigations because it's near impossible to prove intent in cases like these.

This is the longest contract in NHL history and makes Rick Dipietro look like a travelling nomad.

Of course, the NHL can't do anything about it because the NHL is scared of Lamoriello, and because they allowed ridiculously long-term contracts for every star player in the league.

So what's Lamoriello's response? Cue Tom Gulitti of the Devils' Fire & Ice blog:

I asked Lamoriello what he would think if someone brought up Kovalchuk’s contract in the next round of CBA negotiations (in two years) and pointed to it as a flaw.

“I might agree,” he said. “But there is nothing that we have done wrong. This is within the rules. This is in the CBA. There are precedents that have been set. But I would agree we shouldn’t have these. But I’m also saying that because it’s legal and this is something that ownership felt comfortable doing for the right reasons.”

The issue is not that the Devils are cheating, but that front-loaded contracts do nothing for 'cost-certainty' or all the other things that the salary cap was supposed to do. Thus, we're probably headed for another work stoppage in a couple of years to rectify this whole situation.

The Devils, by paying Kovalchuk an extra six years after 2021 (when he's 38 and would probably retire) save just $3.5 million (or one Jeff Finger), but a total of $32.5 million in cap space over the 11 years that he's playing.

Normally I don't really care about contracts, I just like watching the games, but the more bloated, front-loaded contracts we see, the more likely we are to Gary Bettman's third work stoppage in his tenure as NHL commissioner. Hopefully, it will also be his last.

UPDATE

Contract rejected by NHL. The question is not 'why' but 'why now'?