Arbitrator rejects Ilya Kovalchuk's 17 year contract with Devils
Arbitrator Richard Bloch has sided with the NHL in the Ilya Kovalchuk contract dispute. As a result, the Russian star becomes an unrestricted free agent once again and his 17-year contract with the Devils is thrown out.
almost 2 years ago
Travis Hughes
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
#1 Flyers fan in England (originally from Southeastern PA)
by Orange and Black Forever on Aug 9, 2010 5:45 PM EDT reply actions
Too late – sorry. :)
#1 Flyers fan in England (originally from Southeastern PA)
by Orange and Black Forever on Aug 9, 2010 5:59 PM EDT up reply actions
Gary Bettman reigns supreme.
Contributor at The Brotherly Game, SBN's Philadelphia Union blog
Oh, don’t worry. Carter’s 36 year contract won’t get rejected, since it will actually increase in value as time goes on. You can’t put a price on having a player guaranteed to shoot high and wide at the still-young age of 62.
Contributor at The Brotherly Game, SBN's Philadelphia Union blog
I am absolutely stunned at this news. I still think he signs with NJ, but LA still has a lot of cap space to spend and a lot of seats still up for sale in the Staples Center.
I urge everyone who’s interested in this decision and possible consequences to skim the Jewels from the Crown (LA Kings SBN blog), where Quisp has again made several excellent analyses of the decision. I don’t know if Quisp has much bloghelp there, but his stuff is terrific.
My post below discusses the “vagueness” of the Players position…this is based on the Article 26 centering of the defense Quisp unpacks.
Raul Ibanez: since Moyer is on the DL, he is fast becoming our favorite old guy.
Rooting against a certain LW for the Tampa Bay Lightning will be impossible.
Wow, I have my internet out all day, I come on and this is the first thing I see.
I am not surprised by the ruling at all, I’m kind of glad it got rejected. Now what is he going to do?
My guess is either he’ll take the King’s offer or bolt for the KHL.
#1 Flyers Fan in New York
Good bye #12, you will always bleed Orange and Black.
I’ve never seen a fan base act so irrational over an issue. They are seriously worse than Montreal fans right now, or damn close. I’m in agreement with them that it is BS that the other deal were allowed(Luongo, Hossa, etc.) but that doesn’t mean that Kovy’s deal is not pretty clearly in violation of the CBA.
Formerly... "You don't have to be sweet, to be good"
I would thank the fans at In Lou We Trust
For giving me such a great new signature. It will have me smiling until the season starts.
personally
I think the Devils and Kovalchuk should now sue the NHL for age discrimination. They’re essentially saying he CAN’T play until he’s 44.
Go Devils
by FrankG929 on Aug 9, 2010 5:15 PM PDT
Remember your love for bettman and co. when the calls go against the flyers way and all the philly fans will shout that the league hates the flyers. Have fun when your butt buddy bettman’s henchmen at the war room in toronto and overturn goals by the flyers, and you’ll all be changing your tune about your feelings with the suits running the NHL.
Devil for Life
by st.pattysdaymassacre26 on Aug 9, 2010 8:58 PM EDT reply actions
You won’t find too many folks here who have great love for Bettman or the NHL honchos.
However, this is a rival blog—I certainly wouldn’t expect the Devils to feel anything less than glee if Homer were getting roasted over a similar deal right now. It’s the nature of Schaudenfreude.
Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.
So are you saying that the league hates the Devils? Honestly, I think if Pronger’s contract wasn’t 35+, most of us would be in agreement that it’s cap circumvention and, personally, I would have had no problem if the league rejected it at that point or whatever. There’s something to be said for going too far, and this Kovalchuk contract with 97% of the money being paid over the first 11 years can reasonably be considered going too far.
For what it’s worth, I haven’t had much of a problem with the way the league’s been run over the past few years. Bettman made a hell of a gamble with Comcast and Versus but I think it’s finally starting to pay off (whether that’s just luck, I don’t know, but it looks like he ultimately made the right decision).
Contributor at The Brotherly Game, SBN's Philadelphia Union blog
You ain't a has-been, if you never was.
by jello44 on Aug 9, 2010 9:48 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Contributor at The Brotherly Game, SBN's Philadelphia Union blog
Indeed. I was hopeful this would be posted within the next few days. I skimmed it, and there’s definitely some items of interest (i.e. the Pronger contract is still under investigation). It also sounds doubtful that there will be penalties, since the ruling states that Bloch believes both parties acted in good faith, believing that the contract was within the letter of the CBA.
Honor is no substitute for victory.
I am very disappointed by the likelihood that Lou avoided a penalty, since this whole time I had been hoping for Lou to get a fine that counted against the cap. I must have jinxed it by actually saying it to Geoff on Sunday that I was interested in that angle, darn it. I feel that watching the whole saga unfold would have been totally worth it if we got to revel in Lou taking a 1M – 5M cap penalty this year.
by DragonGirl0583 on Aug 10, 2010 12:21 AM EDT up reply actions
Is it final that the Devils won’t get a fine? Regardless, I don’t necessarily agree that they deserve one.
Backing Backlund for 2010-2011
Mourning Gagne forever.
Nope, definitely not final. But the arbitrator’s opinion is admissible evidence in any hearing to determine punishment (if one is ever even held, which seems unlikely), and his opinion doesn’t seem to find them guilty of intent; and that hurts any case the league could make to impose a serious fine or loss of draft picks. Lou might get the flat $25,000 fine for filing an inadmissible contract, but that’s not going to hurt him very much.
by DragonGirl0583 on Aug 10, 2010 12:48 AM EDT up reply actions
An excellent find
Ben, nice job. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, NHL fans are fortunate to be able to have access to this kind of stuff (good luck getting access to MLB docs, for example).
But I was VERY interested in the Players’ Association position. It seemed flawed from the beginning, not addressing the issue at hand. The reason the league won is that it cited chapter and verse. The Players essentially said, don’t sweat the details, it’s the whole of the CBA that matters, and after all, this isn’t really circumvention. Huh? One wonders if the lack of leadership at NHLPA led to such as vague (and not specific) defense by their legal team.
The reason this matters is that the players have had on-going negotiations with Don Fehr. I fear (no pun intended) that with such incompetence that they players will fall all over each other trying to get Don or one of his minions to take over. That would flip the balance from the current superiority of ownership to a hostile player-owner relationship. For those that don’t follow baseball, Don Fehr used to run the most powerful union in the nation, not just sports-related, with the Major League Baseball Players Association. The likelihood of another work stoppage that would kill the league would rise dramatically.
We actually don’t want the Players Association to be this weak.
Raul Ibanez: since Moyer is on the DL, he is fast becoming our favorite old guy.
Rooting against a certain LW for the Tampa Bay Lightning will be impossible.
Very true. The language in Article 26 is very comprehensive in its assertion that any hint of circumvention is relevant, whether it’s at a micro or macro level and regardless of intent. Basing their argument on the idea that the contract could not be evaluated as a whole, but rather only on individual clauses, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
And yeah, the Player’s Association needs to get itself together, and now. But even if they vote to extend the CBA to 2012, they really need to fix their problems by the end of the 2011 season. If they don’t start the negotiations early, another lockout is basically a guarantee.
by DragonGirl0583 on Aug 10, 2010 12:53 AM EDT up reply actions
I agree. The NHLPA position was very flimsy. The league provided all the right information and the NHLPA didn’t. I was surprised while reading it that they actually took time to prepare any of that because it seemed like an argument someone could make up in an hour.
Backing Backlund for 2010-2011
Mourning Gagne forever.
I honestly don’t know why the NHLPA would fight this. In the case of Kovalchuk he rejected a 12Y 102M contract only to accept a 17Y 102M contract a few weeks later (honestly I think this fact was over looked the most).
Why would the NHLPA even allow for something like that? In essence with the rejection of the shorter contract for the longer one he is basically playing for free for 5Y. If he is going to play that long wouldn’t the NHLPA want the player to get as much money as humanly possible and would want him to get another contract after.
Even if it was only for a million a year that is still another 5M to the player and an % of that 5M then goes to the NHLPA in union dues … unless the dues are a set amount of money that the players must pay every year.
Heh
/daydreaming about blasting some former MBA student presentations for lack of prep, and thinking about how the PA and my MBAs both probably partied the night before!
Raul Ibanez: since Moyer is on the DL, he is fast becoming our favorite old guy.
Rooting against a certain LW for the Tampa Bay Lightning will be impossible.
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