Kovalchuk gets rejected...Savard effected?

To the surprise of almost no one, Ilya Kovalchuk's 17-year deal with the New Jersey Devils was struck down by a Boston-based arbitrator yesterday after he ruled that it willfully circumvented the CBA. The NHL felt that the deal was making a mockery of its salary cap process, as the contract would have had Kovalchuk playing until he was 44, but would have paid him the majority of his money in the first 10 or so years of the deal.

In fact, Kovalchuk would have only gotten just north of 500K per season in the last five years of the contract if he played the entire time. That "if" is likely what caught the NHL's attention: since Kovalchuk signed the deal before he turned 35, he could retire at any time and his cap hit would be wiped off of New Jersey's books.

Not a bad deal for either party, right? If the Devils had Kovalchuk for ten years before he retired, they'd have him at a nice friendly cap hit of around $6 million; In those ten years, Kovalchuk would net around $95 million. Were that the end of the contract, his cap hit would have been $9.5 million per season. Sneaky move there, Lou.

So why does this matter for fans of the Bruins? This little gem from Bloch's decision, tucked in footnote #23 on the second-last page of the document:

"It is true, as the Association observes, that the NHL has registered contracts with structures
similar to the Kovalchuk SPC PA Exh. 8 reflects a list of 11 multi-year agreements, all of which
involve players in their mid to late 30’s and early 40’s. Most of them reflect reasonably
substantial “diveback” (salary reductions that extend over the “tails” of the Agreement). Of these, four such agreements, with players Chris Pronger, *Marc Savard,* Roberto Luongo, and Marian Hossa reflect provisions that are relatively more dramatic than the others...*Several responses are in order: First, while the contracts have, in fact, been registered, their structure has not escaped League notice: those SPCs are being investigated currently with at least the possibility of a subsequent withdrawal of the registration."*

-Source/full ruling from TEAM 1200

The long and short of it, for those who don't enjoy a bit of light summer legalese reading, is that Marc Savard's deal with the Bruins is under investigation by the league again. There was some talk that since the deal has already been registered and approved, it couldn't be looked at again.

However, the CBA dictates, as explained here, that any NHL contract, whether it's been approved or filed or whatever, can be investigated and challenged by the NHL at any time. The NHL could elect to bring the challenge to an arbitrator, who would ultimately have final say.

So what's going to happen? Probably nothing, if only because of the series of consequences that would follow. The deals for Savard, Luongo and Pronger haven't gone into effect yet, as they were contract extensions; Hossa is the only one who has already been paid by his front-loaded deal.

If the NHL were to go back and void those contracts, they'd likely face a full-scale revolt from the NHLPA. The players likely wouldn't look on having their contracts canceled after they were already approved lightly, and could elect to simply sit out another season. Another lockout could essentially kill the NHL in the United States, where hockey already lags behind a number of sports in terms of popularity.

The opinion here is that Savard's deal may be "investigated," but little, if anything, will come of it. The NHL has shown with its Kovalchuk stance that they won't tolerate these deals anymore, but it's unlikely that they'll go back and re-write the history books, so to speak.

If Savard's deal does get wiped clean, however, it puts the B's in an interesting spot: if they really are trying to move him for cap relief, his recently-signed contract extension would no longer be a problem, as he would instead become an unrestricted free agent.

Hmm...I wonder if Peter Chiarelli would be all that upset if Savard's deal got a closer look by Bloch & Co.