Ilya Kovalchuk Case Closed: NHL Wins

Tough decision made by arbitrator Richard Bloch, who deemed Ilya Kovalchuk's $102-million, 17-year contract with the New Jersey Devils to be ''against the Collective Bargaining Agreement's spirit'', despite Marian Hossa (Chicago Blackhawks), Roberto Luongo (Vancouver Canucks), Chris Pronger (Philadelphia Flyers) and Marc Savard (Boston Bruins), among others, all having similar deals.

As you can see in the comments section of this Sportsnet link, most fans are happy with the decision, because very few think anyone, let alone who isn't the best at what he does, deserves that kind of money. By making $11.5M in the fourth year of that deal, he would, in effect, be the highest-paid player in the league that year, ahead of poster child Sidney Crosby and Russian superstar Alex Ovechkin.

But these players have never had to deal with free agency, where the market decides your value, usually through a bidding war between two or more teams. Kovalchuk has. And both teams fought over how to give him $10M per season in the way (and length of time) that made the most sense to them, financially.

And the way to do that was to do it like many other NHL contracts, and front-load them, which means giving Kovalchuk the maximum amount of money in the first few years and have the annual salary diminish in what could be the twilight years of his career - orhe could retire and not play at minimum wage for the last 5 years of the deal, when he would be aged 39 to 44.

And that's precisely what this decision was based on: the speculation that neither the team nor the player intended for him to play out all 17 seasons of the contract. But no one really knows, do they? And no '' secret tapes'' were released even hinting to such an agreement being in place.

They say the deal circumvented the CBA, but it follows it to the letter. Everything in that contract is allowed - even for the player to retire or for the team to buy him out for the last 5 years. But we wouldn't have even known that was the route they were going to take for another 12 yers - that's a lot of actual hockey before reaching a mere possibility.

What this decision means, in effect, is that perceptions have changed the legal system. It is no longer the accusation that has to come up with evidence, it's the defense; this means the presumption of innocence until proven guilty no longer stands - it's actually the other way around.

It also means a written contract - an agreement between two parties following the exact letter of the law - can be void if an outside party deems it to be detremental to good taste, despite it being lawful.

This, legally, sets a very dangerous precedent.

And it sets up another lock-out after next season.