On Monday, arbitrator Richard Bloch made the ground-breaking ruling to uphold the NHL’s right to abolish Ilya Kovalchuk’s 17-year, $102 million deal with the New Jersey Devils, based on the grounds that the deal was created to circumvent the salary cap.
But as the official news spread, general managers around the league began to tremble, because this ruling didn’t just set a precedent for future deals — it could even change the past. For not only did Bloch tear apart the Kovalchuk deal, he mentioned, by name, the deals for Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo, Boston’s Marc Savard, Chicago’s Marian Hossa and Philly’s Chris Pronger, as example of infraction.
Bloch wrote …
“While the contracts have, in fact, been registered, their structure has not escaped League notice: those SPCs [standard player’s contracts] are being investigated currently with at least the possibility of a subsequent withdrawal of the registration.”
Phila.Bright 