I don’t usually follow all the contract deals in the various pro sports league. But this headline on NHL.com grabbed my attention. Luongo is certainly one of the best goaltenders in the NHL, but what would compel Vancouver to sign a player to a 12 year contract? He’s 30 years old and I’m sure he won’t be a top goaltender or even in the NHL at all 12 years from now.
Is this some quirk of salary structuring over a long period of time?
Yes, there’s a major loophole in the NHL’s salary cap that teams are starting to exploit. A player’s cap hit is equal to his average salary over the length of the contract. This allows a team to pay a player a large salary early in the deal and late in the contract, after the time that the player is expected to retire, pay them almost nothing. For example, this is how Luongo’s contract pays out:
2010-2011: 10 million
2011-2012: 6.716 million
2012-2013: 6.714 million
2013-2014: 6.714
2014-2015: 6.714
2015-2016: 6.714
2016-2017: 6.714
2017-2018: 6.174
2018-2019: 3.382 million
2019-2020: 1.618 million
2020-2021 1 million
2021-2022 1 million
Luongo gets over $6 million per year up until age 38, but his cap hit is only $5.33 million. By that time, he’s likely to retire, and when he does so his contract no longer counts against the cap.
Chicago did the same thing when they signed Marian Hossa.
Stupid Luongo standing on his head to beat the Stars.
Grumblebitchwhinemoan
I hope he did it in a nice rich baritone, a capella.
[Modding]I fixed the thread title.[/Modding]
I noticed there were some very long contracts being handed out in the NHL - the Islanders also gave their goalie a huge one a few years ago - but I didn’t know about this salary cap quirk. Very interesting. I assumed it was just a situation like in the NBA a decade ago where teams always offered long deals to promising players, and only more recently the players began to figure out the positive side of signinf a shorter contract.
I should clarify that only contracts that come into effect before a player is 35* come off of the cap when the player retires.
Or possibly contracts that are signed before the player is 35 – there’s a looming dispute between the NHL and the Flyers over Chris Pronger’s contract on this issue. The NHL asserts the former, the Flyers the latter.
Also the Hossa contract might be declared to be illegal by the NHL as well.
IIRC, the problem with the Hossa deal was that the Blackhawks discussed a retirement date with him.
That’s correct. A backdoor agreement that the player will quit before the contract ends is specifically forbidden.
However, just playing with the cap rules, as the Luongo deal does, breaks no rule. If a league’s going to have rules about salary caps, you can’t blame the Canucks for playing the game well.
Right. I didn’t mean to imply any criticism of Luongo’s deal- just pointing out the difference between him and Hossa.