Long Term Gamble

Long term contracts are proving popular in the NHL, but are they a wise move?

Fans in oil country are breathing a sigh of relief – again.

After signing league MVP Connor McDavid to an eight-year contract worth $100 million, the Edmonton Oilers have now locked up another of its young stars – long term.

Forward Leon Draisaitl will be in blue and orange until 2026 after agreeing to an eight-year $68 million deal. At 21 years of age, Draisaitl who paired well with McDavid last year – convinced Oiler brass that he’s already a superstar.

Connor McDavid & Leon Draisaitl will be in Edmonton for 8 years after signing deals worth a combined $168 million

If news of a player signing an eight year deal seems underwhelming, it should be. In recent years, NHL teams have signed more and more players to long term contracts – from Toronto’s Nikita Zaitsev (seven-year $31.5 million), to Montreal’s Carey Price (eight-year $84 million) and the 2014 signings of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane by Chicago (also eight-year $10.5 Million respectively) the trend towards long term deals shows no signs of slowing down.

Long term contracts are certainly nothing new in pro hockey.

Wayne Gretzky signed a 21 year contract on his 18^th birthday. The deal orchestrated by then Oilers owner Peter Pocklington, was a personal services contract meant to keep “The Great One” with the team until 1999. Everyone in Edmonton is painfully aware of how that worked out.

Gretzky would be sold to Los Angeles less than a decade after signing his 21 year deal

While Gretzky’s deal was largely a publicity stunt, some teams have awarded long-term deals with disastrous results.

Plagued with declining attendance, New York Islanders Owner Charles Wang traded for disgruntled Ottawa Senators star Alexei Yashin and signed him to a ten-year deal worth $87.5 Million. Yashin would last only four seasons on Long Island. Unable to find his form after returning from a knee injury, the Russian sniper managed 119 goals in 346 games before the Islanders bought out the remainder of his contract.

At the beginning of Yashin’s final season, the Islanders raised eyebrows by signing another player to a long term deal. Goaltender Rick DiPietro with only 58 wins in 144 games, was inked to an incredible 15-year, $67.5 million contract.  Like Yashin, DiPietro struggled through injuries, and inconsistent play.  After floundering in the minors and unable to unload his salary, the Islanders bought out the former 1^st-overall pick in July 2013.

While not every long term deal becomes a DiPietro-esque catastrophe for ownership, it does beg the question – Are long term contracts in the best interest of the NHL, its fans or even its players?

Agents certainly prefer them and owners like them because they feel they’re appeasing fans with long term planning.

That said, I would argue these types of deals do more harm than good. Ask any New York Islanders fan what they think of long term contracts.

Struggling stars anchored to their team for nearly a decade – if not longer – makes fans apathetic. It also damages the credibility of ownership and the league by showing their inability to accurately project player development. While the bulk of long-term contracts don’t end badly, the risk is too great.

The solution? A five-year cap on NHL contracts.

Why not? If a player is worth $10 million a season, then sign them for five years. That’s $50 million for the player – nothing to cry about. If at the end of that contract they are still worth the same amount or even more – then sign them to another five year deal.

Rick DiPietro is the reason the NHL should employ a contract cap 

For a league that spent years preaching the need for “cost certainty” when it comes to player salary, it stands to reason that the NHL would embrace a contract cap.

Such a measure would still allow players to be millionaires and for their agents to profit off them. Most of all, it would mandate managerial sanity whenever an owner or GM decides a twenty-year contract is in their team’s best interest. 

Fans may be happy when a star is guaranteed to be in their team's jersey long term. However, a contract cap would also spare them from a great deal of frustration if things don't work out.

While a contract cap will likely never happen, in hockey just about anything is possible.

@HockeyCynic