The Rise and Fall of the Lifetime Contract?
Posted by bcbenzel on July 31, 2009 · 5 Comments
The NHL needs to institute “Term Limits.”
No…I’m not talking about for its long lamented commissioner. I’m not talking about for the coaches or general managers. I’m talking about for the players.
Okay. So maybe term limit isn’t exactly the right turn of phrase. But the concept remains. These “lifetime contracts” are getting absolutely ridiculous. Sure…They’re a great way to fit your superstar players under the cap. But, honestly, do they seem a bit shortsighted to anyone else?
Consider Chris Pronger and his $6.25M cap hit.
Not a bad deal for a superstar defenseman, right? And look at this! You’re going to have him for $525K per for the last two years of the contract. Talk about a bargain!
But wait…Hold on. If he decides to play those last two years…You’ll be paying him $525K…But be on the hook for $6.25M? Well that doesn’t sound very good. But, that’s Chris Pronger. It’s a unique situation.
Okay…So Henrik Zetterberg. There’s a good contract. $6.083M cap hit. That’s a great deal for a player of Hank’s caliber. But what about when you’re paying him $1M per year in the twilight of his career, yet still on the hook for just over $6M?
Sure, these contracts look great now. But how about when a player doesn’t have enough tread on the tires to live up to the contract?
Take Brendan Shanahan, for example. Give him one of those front loaded contracts back in the 2000-01 season. It looks fantastic when he’s averaging 60-70 points a season and 30-40 goals. But after a 73 game, 46 point performance? What about a 34 game, 14 point performance? It begins to look a lot worse.
Or what about Sergei Fedorov? Give him one of those contracts back in the same season and it’s looking great when he’s putting up 30-goal, 60-point seasons. Then he dips down to average 15-goal, 40-point seasons. Great for the beginning, pretty poor for the end.
The bottom line is that these long-term contracts will only benefit these teams for so long. Eventually, however, the production of the majority of these players will begin to fall off. Sure, there will be the odd player that has a career like Joe Sakic has had, whose production stays consistent right up until the end of his career, but the majority of these players? By the end of their careers, they won’t be worth the cap hit — most of them nowhere near. Sure…In 2013, Pavel Datsyuk will likely be as productive as he is now. But will Henrik Zetterberg in 2020? What about Vincent Lecavalier in 2019? I highly doubt it.
Don’t get me wrong. These contracts are great for the players…But they’re horrible for the NHL. What’s more…They’re horrible for the fans.
Why?
Take a look at this. The top free agents for 2010? Nicklas Lidstrom, Roberto Luongo and Ilya Kovalchuk. If you think that any of these three won’t be locked up (or in Lidstrom’s case, retired) by then, you’re crazy. After that? The crop is still decent…Patrick Marleau, Evgeni Nabokov, Olli Jokinen…All good players, all potential game changers…But bona fide 100% pure superstars, they aren’t.
In 2011? You’ve got Brad Richards, Zdeno Chara and Joe Thornton…But there isn’t a UFA under the age of 31 until you get to Patrice Bergeron and, no offense to him, but I hardly think that teams will be knocking down his door.
2012? A class headlined by Chris Drury, Ryan Smyth and Brian Rafalski.
Finally, in 2013, you get Sidney Crosby, Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Nathan Horton, all under 30…But does anyone really think that four out of the five of them will be available?
Talk about nothing for fans to get excited about. Let me tell you that, if in 2012 I’m getting excited about the possibilities of the Minnesota Wild signing a 35 year old Chris Drury or a 36 year old Ryan Smyth, I should be committed.
The bottom line is that these long-term contracts are a plague on the NHL. The more long-term contracts get signed, the more teams will, not only handcuff themselves, but handcuff the league’s ability to spread parity throughout. Not only that, but it harms the fans as well. A lack of marquee free agents during the off season can kill any momentum that the league has with the fans.
The CBA is expiring soon and it’s looking more and more like there could be another labor dispute looming. But one thing is for certain. In the new CBA, the NHL needs to impose some sort of limitation on the length of contracts…Not only for the entertainment of the fans, but for the long term health of the league as well.
Totally disagree with your thoughts. What’s bad for the fans is having a completely diluted NHL, each team having just one good player because they can’t afford to sign more than that. Or worse, having your favorite player leave your team because his contract expired and the team couldn’t afford to offer him anything more than a 1 year deal. I’d much rather see teams be able to hold onto their talent long-term than to see so much flux in the league through free agency.
Also, I think that you might be forgetting the buyout. Pretty important point to realize when it comes to these front loaded, long term deals. Sure a player signed to one of these deals is not going to be as productive in his late 30s early 40s. That’s another benefit of the reduction in salary. The player can be bought out for MUCH less than his cap hit would be at the time, since it is a factor of remaining salary, not average salary like the cap.
I completely agree with the buyout part…But I don’t see a problem with “long term” contracts being defined as 5 or 6 year deals as opposed to 10-12 year deals.
The idea of turnover at the top of the rankings, honestly, excites me as a fan much more than dynasties do. Sure, it’s always a thrill when someone knocks off the big winner of the league, but these long term contracts are, in and of themselves, diluting the NHL. Look at the talent pool for the free agent crops in coming years and it looks very bleak…With the same teams destined to have the same players year after year, it makes rebuilding that much harder for the teams that aren’t contending year after year. They can rebuild through the draft, but it’s very rare that you can string together a series of drafts like the Pens did and get four cornerstones to build around.
The biggest thing that having flux in the league through free agency achieves is it energizes both the league and the fan base. Look at how much buzz the New York Yankees achieved this off season by acquiring Sabathia, Burnett and Texiera in one fell swoop. Granted, with the salary cap, that would never happen in the NHL but imagine what the buzz would become if there were something similar to happen. This season was a fairly exciting off season because of the names involved…The upcoming ones, not so much.
I totally agree with bcbenzel. It’s kind of stupid hearing about all these lifetime contracts. What I really want to know is why the NHL is so stupid. Why would they make teams take a cap hit of the average money payed in a players contract. Teams should take a cap hit of the players salary for that year. For example: (Any players name here) gets payed 6 million for the 1st year of his contract. the 2nd year 5.5 million, the 3rd year 5 million and so on. On the first year of the players contract the team takes a cap hit of only 6 mil then the 2nd year the cap hit is 5.5 million and so on. This will stop teams from cheating the salary cap. They should also make a contract to be no longer than 6 years. This way there is a better chance of having stars becoming free agents.
The buyout option is THE entire reason teams are doing these deals. This is a solid article but that’s a point that had to be made.
http://sportsjudge.blogspot.com/2009/07/hossa-contract-under-review-by-nhl.html
If and when Hossa retires with 4 years to go on his deal, the Hawks will be on the hook for 290k a year which in real terms is absolutely nothing. Why wouldn’t you add on as many meaningless years as possible to the end as opposed to absorbing the full $8M cap hit that teams like Washington and Pittsburgh are with their superstars.
I think the biggest problem with these deals happening over the last few years is that teams that can’t afford to take advantage of this window in the CBA will be at a disadvantage when they are unable to lock up superstars after the new CBA and term limits (or whatever else) is instituted. This is ‘Cash for Clunkers’ on ice. Do it now or you’ll be left out. To me, that’s not fair to today’s small market teams.