Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Ilya Kovalchuk is now a free agent again. And he may have sparked a labour war.

With the current CBA expiring in 2012, the Kovalchuk ruling could be the first battle in a long war.

If this is the first volley in the War of 2012, let the record show that it was the National Hockey League owners who turned their cannons around and fired the first blast right back into their own midst.

It was an owner in New Jersey who agreed to the see-through Ilya Kovalchuk contract, the same owner who pushed the envelope so far that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had little choice but to refuse to validate the contract, and that owner whose actions forced the NHL Players’ Association to grieve that league decision.

And in the aftermath of arbitrator Richard Bloch’s Monday ruling -- that the 17-year, US$102-million deal indeed contravened the spirit of the Collective Bargaining Agreement -- we can see the first trench being dug in a battle that the NHL will be hard-pressed to weather.

Does this move to stem the tide of long-term deals mark the opening of a Goodenow-like air of distrust between the two sides? The start of what could be a protracted fight over the next CBA, which expires in September of 2012?

Well, ask yourself this: Is the NHL healthy enough in America to weather another one of those?

Bloch ruled that the New Jersey Devils had bent the CBA beyond legality, rejecting a contract that was going to pay Kovalchuk until he was age 44.

“His ruling is consistent with the League's view of the manner in which the Collective Bargaining Agreement should deal with contracts that circumvent the Salary Cap,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement.

“The NHLPA is disappointed with the Arbitrator’s ruling to uphold the NHL’s rejection of the contract between the New Jersey Devils and Ilya Kovalchuk,” countered the NHLPA in a statement of their own. “The NHLPA is currently reviewing the decision and will have no further comment at this time.”

Get used to the disagreement. The NHL owners have never had enough foresight not to torpedo their own cause when it comes to economics or player relations.

Remember, an NHL owner making a foolish, short-sighted decision to the detriment of his 29 partners isn’t exactly a rare sighting. This is a group that required a salary cap to save itself from its own overspending; a group that spent so drunkenly, the players were taking home 75 per cent of league revenues prior to the last lockout.

Then, as soon as a new CBA was signed, the owners and their general manages went about trying to find loopholes that would mitigate the cap they had fought so long and hard to obtain.

Starting with Miikka Kiprusoff’s contract, which dropped from $8.5 million in the first year to $1.5 in the final year, the league has allowed the slippery slope of these cap-mitigating contracts to exist.

After Kiprusoff, Marian Hossa and others, the obvious question is how Bloch managed to find the Kovalchuk deal circumvented the cap, after the league had allowed so many questionable ones before it to pass.

Sure, the Kovalchuk contract was ridiculous. But how did Bloch justify allowing the NHL to put the toothpaste back into that tube?

How can Bloch shed doubt on Kovalchuk’s intentions to play until he is 44 years old, when Central Registry has rubber stamped contracts that pay Roberto Luongo until he is 43, Marian Hossa until he’s 42, and Vincent Lecavalier, Henrik Zetterberg and Johan Franzen until they are 40?

So Kovalchuk becomes a free agent again. We’ll see how much Lou Lamoriello likes him when his cap hit is closer to $8 million than $6 million.

The 27-year-old Kovalchuk put together 41 goals and 44 assists between the Atlanta Thrashers and Devils in 76 games last season.

But his impact, wherever he ends up signing, will be felt less this year than it will in 2012.

The NHLPA won’t like this bit of chicanery. Nor should they.

They got hoodwinked on this one.