Now that Ilya Kovalchuk is once again a member of the New Jersey Devils, with his CBA-altering 15-year, $100 million safe and secure, you have to wonder exactly how he and the defence-first Devils are going to get along.
Kovalchuk's contract, which has an annual cap hit of $6.67 million, was approved by the NHL Friday, but the league and the NHL Players Association have made alterations to the collective bargaining agreement that will affect and influence future long-term contracts.
Kovalchuk, 27, will be property of the Devils until he is 42-years old. The contract he originally signed earlier this summer was a 17-year deal worth $102 million, but the majority of that money was to be paid to him in the first 10 years. He was slated to be paid just $550,000 for the final five years of the contract, but the NHL rejected it and that decision was upheld by arbitrator Richard Bloch.
The NHL also said it was investigating similar 'retirement contracts' signed by Chris Pronger of the Philadelphia Flyers, Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks, Marian Hossa of the Chicago Blackhawks and Marc Savard of the Boston Bruins. The suspicion is, those players do not plan to play out the deals and because the money is significantly less in the declining years of the deals, it would be easy for their teams to buy them out.
The league and P.A. met this week and arrived at a compromise. The NHL has dropped its' investigation into the Pronger, Luongo, Hossa and Savard deals as part of the new agreement.
There were also new rules introduced governing contracts that would last longer than five years and how they will be valued under the salary cap.
Any deal that goes past a player's 41st birthday will be accounted for in two ways: The compensation for all seasons that do not include or succeed the player's 41st birthday will be totaled and divided by the number of those seasons to determine the number charged against the team's cap for those seasons. In all subsequent seasons, the team's charge will be the actual compensation paid to the player.
Additionally, any long-term contract that averages more than $5.75 million for the three highest seasons, a player's compensation for any season in which he is age 36, 37, 38, 39 and/or 40 shall be valued at a minimum of $1 million.
But back to Kovalchuk and the Devils. The question is: Is this a marriage that will work?
Kovalchuk is one of the most gifted offensive players in the NHL with 338 goals and 64 points in 621 games. Following the trade that sent him to New Jersey from Atlanta last season, he managed 10 goals and 27 points in 27 regular season games and another two goals and six points in five playoff games. Not bad numbers, but the Devils were bounced in the opening round of playoffs for the third straight season. Certainly the expectations were much higher for the Devils with Kovalchuk on board.
Things will be different this year. Defence maniac coach Jacques Lemiare has been replaced by John MacLean, a former two-way star for the Devils. Also, Jason Arnott, who won the Stanley Cup with the Devils in 1999-2000, is back with the team. Arnott matured into a solid leader playing the past four seasons with the Predators.
The Devils also have Zach Parise, one of the most top young players in the league, as well as veteran Patrik Elias and Travis Zajac up front.
A couple of things to worry about, though: First and foremost, the Devils will have to trim about $5 million in payroll to be able to bring Kovalchuk back.
Also, GM Lou Lamoriello (who has a great influence over his coaching staff) leans heavily toward tight-checking, defensive hockey. That's Devils' hockey. Will he allow MacLean to let his offence run a little wilder than we have come to expect from this team? MacLean knows a thing or two about scoring having accumulated 413 goals in his 18-year NHL career.
Finally, while Martin Brodeur is unquestionably one of the greatest goalies in NHL history, he has faltered the past few years in the play-offs. It has been suggested over and over again that the Devils rest him more during the regular season - he played 77 of his team's 82 games last year - so far they have resisted doing so. At 38-year's old, this had better be the year Brodeur sees a little more bench time in the regular season if the Devils are to go deep into the playoffs.
All in all, it will be an interesting experiment with Kovalchuk on board…for 15 years. It is hard to imagine him becoming a two-way player. There are defencemen in Atlanta whom he still can't put a face to their name. He will most likely continue to concentrate on scoring, and scoring only, while taking long shifts that will drive his coach and GM nuts. But he is a great hockey player, er, offensive force, and sometimes those guys help teams win championships.
This is a breaking-out-of-the-box scenario for the Devils, a long-term calculated risk. But truth be told, their old style hasn't cut it the past few years. Maybe a change in philosophy just might work.
