Length Matters.
In the salary cap era, it seems that the quickest way to doom your team to years of mediocrity is long-term contracts. Now i'm not talking about locking up a Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin or Geno Malkin. I'm talking about the Shawn Horcoffs and Jason Blakes of the world.
A look at two teams that are at the bottom of the NHL standings will tell you all you need to know. The Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs are both saddled with some very onerous contracts, though the Leafs have done well recently at shedding a couple of those anchors.
The Oilers current albatross is one Shawn Horcoff. Horcoff signed a massive six-year contract extension in 2008 that has quickly become the bane of the Oilers organization and fans alike. A similar situation existed in Toronto with the Jason Blake and Vesa Toskala contracts until Brian Burke was able to unload the on Anaheim, albeit at the same time taking a large contract back in J.S. Giguere.
NHL General Managers are learning that you must be very judicious when handing out these contracts. Think the New York Islanders are glad they gave Rick DiPietro a 115 year contract? I know it wasn't quite that long but I bet it feels like it.
The way I see it is that you only hand out such deals to the elite of the elite. It is much better to lose a good to very good player than to sign him to a ridiculous 5 or 6 year deal and have him immdediately become just OK.....or worse.
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paul wrote on Feb 10, 2010
I'm surprised the NHL didn't learn from the NBA when it came to the term on contracts. They used to hand out long deals to ***py players, now they have limits that I think would work in the NHL. 4 years if you sign a guy from another team, if hes one of your players you can sign him for a 5th year. It also keeps team from front loading contracts to get around the cap. The whole point of the salary cap was to allow teams to stay competitive, not to give teams like Detroit and Washington a loop hole to keep their dominant rosters intact. (I'm speculating that Backstrom will get a deal for many years, and maybe Semin as well.)