By Joce, Senior Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine

“Something is not right there. It’s confusing. All these owners, maybe this was their plan the whole time, to sign all these guys to these big contracts knowing full well they’re not going to pay the value of them. To me, that doesn’t sound like good-faith negotiating, yet they keep preaching it.” — Zach Parise to the Minneapolis Star Tribune during the last lockout.

PENTICTON, BC. – A lot was said by both sides during this last lockout, the third such work stoppage under NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman in his 20 year reign. The last two times, he had a chance to fix the NHL for good and ensure a fair parity between rich and not-so-rich teams in the league he governs. While he was able to force a hard salary cap on the players, we know what happened after the 2005 lockout which saw an entire season being lost, a first in professional sports in North America. The people that he is representing, the teams and their owners, found loop holes in that CBA which later needed to be addressed in order for the league to save face. But have they?

Yes, they have limited the length of the contracts players could sign to eight years if a player re-signs with his old team, or seven years if signing with a new team. Yes, they have redistributed the revenues between players and owners by adjusting the escrow. It’s a bit ironic to hear that word as in French, it is synonym with swindle, fraud, cheat or rip off. But who was the victim in this whole thing? The owners? Nahhh. Look at them making money hand over fist! The players? Have you seen the contracts signed since the lockout ended? Oh, it’s the fans, you say? Like sheep ignoring the danger of the wolves surrounding them, fans have returned stronger than ever, hungry for the sport they love and missed so much, missing at the same time a golden opportunity to ensure that those wolves wouldn’t do it again. The good news I guess is that they won’t do it for at least another seven years when we’ll go back to square one.

Talking with some followers on my Twitter account, we were trying to see how many long term deals have been beneficial to both the team(s) and the player(s) involved. At that time, we were thinking Ilya Kovalchuk with the Devils, while admitting that it was early in the contract to affirmatively make that statement. And we know what happened since, with the early retirement of Kovalchuk who has since singed a lucrative deal in the KHL. Some of those deals were bought out with teams taking advantage of the amnesty buyout, and a player like Roberto Luongo has publicly admitted that his contract sucks, preventing him from getting traded, going as far as saying that if he could, he would scrap it and sign a new one.

Have the owners learned anything though all of this? Looking at the contracts issued since the NHL started its activities after this last work stoppage, it sure doesn’t look like it. And it’s not the salary cap going down next year that has stopped a lot of them to spend! Many teams have issued as long of contracts as allowed by the new CBA by signing players for eight long years. The Anaheim Ducks didn’t waste any time in signing both Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf for a combined total of $135 million, with cap hits of $8.625 million for Perry and $8.25 million for Getzlaf. Others who were signed for eight years are: Flyers Claude Giroux ($8M – NMC), Penguins Evgeni Malkin ($9.5M – NMC) and Kris Letang ($7.25M), Bruins Tuuka Rask ($7M – NMC) and Patrice Bergeron ($6.5M – NMC), and Devils Travis Zajac ($5.75M – NTC).

Some teams have given seven year terms to players like Columbus to Nathan Horton ($5.3M), Toronto with David Clarkson ($5.25M) and Winnipeg with Zach Bogosian ($5.14M). In total since the lockout ended, I’ve counted at least 24 contracts issued for five years or more, totalling over $1 billion in guaranteed salary to those players.

Who are the guilty parties spending top dollars after the fiasco that was this last lockout, you may ask? The Anaheim Ducks, as mentioned above, committed $135 million on two players (Perry and Getzlaf), forcing them to trade young productive player Bobby Ryan.

The Pittsburgh Penguins and GM Ray Shero not only stated that they were commited to sticking with goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and his $5 million cap hit, but he also gave $134 million dollars extensions to his star center Malkin and Norris Trophy nominee Letang.

It should come as no surprise that one of the most prominent teams, whose owner Ed Snider is a close friend to commissioner Bettman, is once again a top spender, even after buying out one of team GM Paul Holmgren’s mistakes in Ilya Bryzgalov, and forward Daniel Briere just a few weeks ago. The Flyers have spent over $113 million to re-sign Claude Giroux and Kimmo Timonen (1 year – $6M), and signing UFAs Vincent Lecavalier (5 years – $22.5M) and Mark Streit (4 years – $21M). Remember that they still have Chris Pronger in the books long term due to concussion issues, whose name will likely return to the long term injury reserve, another long term contract.

You may be surprised to learn that the fourth $100 million Club biggest spender, this time though acquiring big contracts through trades and contract signature, is the Dallas Stars. Counting the acquisition of Tyler Seguin’s six years, $34.5 million contract, the Stars have added over $100 million in salary this summer in guaranteed contracts. In addition to Seguin, Kari Lehtonen (5 years – $29.5M), Jamie Benn (5 years – $26.25M) and Sergei Gonchar (2 years – $10M) all received lucrative contracts.

Here are some of the other contracts not mentioned above:

As you can see for yourself, this last lockout has not stopped the owners’ madness when it comes to issuing big contracts, quite to the contrary. This new CBA is slowly heading towards what the players feared it would go, which is to eliminate the middle-class contracts. By the time this CBA is over, you will find your top end high salaried players on each team, a few players will be making a couple of million a year, and the rest will be close to minimum wage. This means that with a membership of around 700 players, expect the NHLPA to be tough, perhaps even split when it comes to negotiating a new labour contract. Just what the owners want, once again.

En français : Lockout: Un pour tous, tout pour rien