The Toronto Sports Network has reported that the NHL is investigating the long term contracts of Roberto Luongo (12 years), Marian Hossa (12), Chris Pronger (7), and Marc Savard (7) after the arbitrator for Kovalchuk's 17 year contract ruled in the NHL's favor. All five of these contracts follow the same pattern: the players will play at age 40 or older and the yearly salary drastically drops in the final few seasons. It looks as if the NHL has finally taken a stance against teams circumventing the salary cap rules.
This has been a hot topic for the past couple years, and I find it ridiculous that the NHL is just now officially looking into this. If it wasn't for Kovalchuk's deal, I don't think there would be any investigation at all. Devils GM Lou Lamoriello is looking pretty smart right now. By signing Kovy to an outrageous deal that he knew would be rejected, he forced the NHL to look into past deals, as well as prevent any future deals of this sort. I must say for a guy who mastered the most boring style of hockey there is, he's made this off season pretty damn exciting. I'm very interested to see what happens next.
P.S. As long as the NHL doesn't stick their nose into the long contracts of Johan Franzen (11) and Henrik Zetterberg (12), I'm perfectly happy with them screwing over guys like the Hoss and Pronger.
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