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Have long contracts paid off for any team ?
Is there any player that has signed a long contract (8 years minimum) where they continued to play at the level they were expected to (or better) for that duration... or is a long contract a death sentence to the players motivation and career, and something we can expect to see more and more of as players continue to sign longer and longer contracts ?
Ovechkin, Luongo, Kovalchuk... last season these were thought to be some of the best players in the NHL today...
Ovechkin was putting up 50+ goals per season, at his current pace he is going to be lucky to break 30 for the season, and doesn't really seem to care whether that changes or not...
Luongo is 13-8-2 and ranked 27th for SV% (.911) for his $10 million. This is arguably not that bad however considering that the back-up, Schneider has a better record of 3-0-2 so far this season and is posting a better SV% at .917, Luongo hardly seems to be earning his pay.
Kovalchuk is just an embarrassment at 14 points in 28 games and a (-)18 plus/minus. When your plus/minus is lower than your total points, that means you've become such a liability that you are of more benefit to the opposing team to be on the ice, than for your own. With only 5 goals so far this season, he might be averaging $1 million per goal by the end of the season under his contract.
The only reason there seems to be for teams signing these long contracts, is by-passing the Salary Cap in later years...
5 Answers
- 1 decade agoFavorite Answer
It worked well for Wayne Gretzky and Edmonton (20 year contract signed in December 1978)
- Rizr NLv 41 decade ago
I think Alexander Ovechkin's contract is going to pay off. If he EVER hit the free agent market, every serious contender in the NHL would be offering him the maximum allowable salary, making it come down to length. Although some people may not like this, I still believe he is the best NHL player even though he isn't scoring as much as he should right now. Mind you, the Capitals have been struggling and his shooting has gone down a lot. He seems to be content with passing it to Alexander Semin nowadays. In retrospect, Ovechkin is not injury prone and very good offensively. He can also play physically. He's a franchise winger and his salary is justifiable. Even though this didn't fit into your criteria by a year, I think Jaromir Jagr's 7 year, $77M contract was justifiable. He was a great player and put up great numbers even towards the end of his NHL career.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
DiPietro - NO!
Yashin - NOOO!
Kovalchuk - NOOOOOOO!
Luongo - ??????
I think the long contracts are a really bad idea. Ever notice how good players are when they are free agents the following season. These long contract create complacency with the players which seems to hurt there results. Although Crosby and Ovechkin still maintain a high level of play but they are special players.
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