Doug returns from his summer vacation, and the Dudes try and catch up on all the news.  Setoguchi, Mayers, Joslin, Kovalchuk, and Niemi are all discussed.  After some emails, the Dudes finally reveal who they are going to follow in the EPL, a matter of some controversy.

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Now that the Kovy deal has been rejected, and no better description of the NHL’s flip-floppery exists than here, on Deadspin of all places, it’s basically impossible to predict what will happen next.  But my money is on the Devils  restructuring the deal slightly so that the NHL cap guys only chuckle to themselves instead of blow coffee out of their noses.  That appears to be the test that these contracts are subjected to.  A quirky smile means A-OK (Franzen, Ohlund), a girlish giggle will pass (Luongo, Zetterburg), and even a hearty laugh will squeak by (Pronger, Hossa, Lecavalier, Savard).  But a snarf on the keyboard?  Get that $%^! out of here.  As always, behindthenet puts the numbers behind the laughter quotient.

One interesting consequence of these contracts is what it does to the escrow situation, an obscure provision of the CBA, but one that affects all players.  For the ultra-mathy, dig deep into the details with this post by Tyler Dellow, but let me give you the quick-and-dirty.  The salary cap is a hard one- the owners will pay exactly 57% of revenues to the players this season.  However, they don’t know what the actual revenues will be until the season is over, so they do some estimations, and hold back a portion of every player’s salary in escrow accounts.  But here’s the needle- they will pay 57% of the actual salaries, not the cap hits.  So for all of those players that are actually making more than their cap hits (mostly superstars), that drives up the total salary number, which means the escrow withholding is bigger.  And even if the NHL was exactly correct in estimating revenues, the fact that these players made more than their cap hits (calculated based on estimated revenue), that means it’s likely that some or all of that escrow money will go back to the owners.

So the guys that are taking home their cap hit – middle and lower tier players like Scott Nichol – end up with a greater portion of their salary withheld.  These stars are feeding off of the collective, with the idea that they will give back when their salaries eventually are lower than their cap hits.  But we know that these players like Hossa, Luongo, and Kovy will likely retire before they fulfill that part of the contract.  They won’t have to pay the piper at the end, they’ll be on a beach somewhere.  I’ve read some stuff that the escrow number could be as high as 20% under some conditions, and that takes a whole hundred grand off of a guy that’s making the league minimum.  Not cool.

The Dudes were all set to talk about the Kovalchuk contract, but then the NHL goes and rejects it.  Mike and Doug try and figure out why that happened when the Hossa and Keith deals sailed through, and the interesting story of Simon Gagne.  There’s a good listener email about Big Joe, and Doug pulls out another crazy trade.

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So Kovy signs, and not with the Kings, as Doug and I both thought.  Financial details not yet disclosed, but I heard a rumor it’s a 17-year deal, which if true, is ludicrous.  That would mean he’s under contract until he’s 44, which will be right when Chris Chelios is staging another comeback.  Don’t miss the behindthenet take on this, and click other links in that post for background.

Also, Simon Gagne is traded from the Eastern Conference winning Flyers to the Lightning.  They needed to clear cap space so bad they trade a top-6 forward for Matt Walker and a 4th round pick.  And that cap room they freed isn’t really enough to get the goaltender they said they needed on many occasions.  Also they’re paying Michael Leighton $1.6M now, so whoops!

Just found this on the internets a few days ago (I know, I’m late), but it’s funny, and it fits:

Sweet Lou on the left, Dean Lombardi on the right