Recently, The Hockey News, TSN, the NHL and the Vancouver Canucks announced that superstar goaltender and Canucks captain Roberto Luongo has signed a 12-year extension to play the remainder of his days in Vancouver.
TSN reported that the deal would pay him $64 million for the duration of the 12 years. This averages to about $5.3 million per season in cap hit.
Pretty damn good deal for arguably the best goaltender in the world, right?
The 30-year-old goaltender would technically be playing when he is 42, if he retired at the end of this contract. As THN's Ken Campbell stated, "There's also a chance the New York Islanders will face the Phoenix Coyotes in the Stanley Cup final this season."
We've already seen the craziness of the CBA with Marian Hossa's contract, one that is currently under investigation by the National Hockey League because of the lowering of the cap hit by adding extra years of low salary to the end of the contract.
Luongo will make $10 million in the first year of this new extension, which kicks in for the 2010-11 season. He will then make $7.716 million in 2011-12, $6.714 from 2012-13 through 2017-18. Then Luongo will receive $3.382 million in 2018-2019, then $1.618 in 2019-20 and finally, $1 million in the last two years of the deal.
Now is there really a chance that he will play at a high level after 2018, once the money goes down and he is 38 years old?
For any Canucks fan who thinks yes, you're simply wrong. Rarely do goalies play at that age and even Jacques Plante couldn't dominate playing at a high age. It is possible, but not very likely at all.
So why is the CBA failing?
Well, the NHL wanted the CBA in place to save money and force teams to stay under a salary cap that would even the playing field.
Do you see many low market teams dominating the NHL standings? I sure don't.
By making the cap hit equal to the average salary in the contract rather than the actual amount that a player is making, the NHL is simply shooting themselves in the face.
The irony is simply delicious.
The Detroit Red Wings' payroll for this coming season (as of right this second) is $65.135 million, according to NHLSCAP.com. The salary cap payroll, though, will be closer to $56 million, just under the salary cap.
Could the Coyotes afford to do this? Could the Thrashers afford to do this? Absolutely not.
But by front-loading contracts in order to lower the overall cap hit of the contract, GMs are doing something sneaky, yet brilliant: they are finding a loophole in the CBA that allows them to keep high quality players in addition to allowing them the leeway to sign players that will give them a chance to win a championship.
Is it sneaky? Yes. Is it illegal? Far from it.
In fact, if I were a GM, I would be doing the same thing and I'm sure everyone else would as well. Anything to give my team a better chance to win a Stanley Cup, I would do in a second.
So Gary Bettman and his NHL cronies need to sit down in the upcoming months and figure out their plan for when the CBA negotiations restart in the next year. Because if they try to take this away from the owners and the players, there just may be another lockout.
And isn't that just what the other three pro sports want?
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