Rick DiPietro receives 4.5 million each year for the full length of his contract as long as he is an active player.
If he retires, his contract is over and cap hit eliminated, you don't get paid, and the team does not get a cap hit for a retired player.
If he cannot play insurance pays for whatever terms were agreed to by team at time contract was insured.
Problem obviously right now is until his future playing/health status is determined he is paid at times by insurance, and at times by team. It's tough to know when cap hit goes up or down for one specific year depending on time that player is on injured reserve over six months.
At some points insurance does pay contract when he is out for a long amount of time.
DiPietro was right back when he signed, he left a lot of money on the table because if he were making 10m dollars in a heavily front-loaded deal as he was injured, that would be a far bigger hit to team when insurance company was not paying contract.
Of course, there is always the Cablevision way, just sign a basketball player to a guaranteed max contract of a hundred million dollars, who cannot get insurance because of injuries which means you are on the hook for the entire length of the deal, whether he is injured or not.
If Charles Wang agreed to give Rick DiPietro that kind of contract, everything written about it would be justified.
Of course, it's not in the best interest of media selling select teams/players to the public to play up that aspect.
Quick Hits/Notables:
Martin Brodeur was not very classy about Nassau Coliseum yesterday or Islanders, and it was very disappointing on a day, his team was the focus.
Too bad Cablevision did not give it Knick-like television coverage for a staff that comes in weekly to discuss hockey on their network, and had a national event on their doorstep that demanded coverage, but we have discussed that enough.
Newark paid for a big part of Prudential Center, and handed Devils big part of arena revenue.
With Ilya Kovalchuk, a first place team, and a guaranteed playoff spot the Prudential Center was not sold out often. It was packed with opposing fans during playoffs, or final CAA game where Islander fans were loud in a building not sold out on Easter Sunday.
When New York was a winning team, they sold out every single game, in 2002, they sold out most of the second half.
Devils in their new building are still losing money per owner James Vanderbeek NY Times & Newark Star Ledger.
As for Martin Brodeur, have a cup-cake and go to the Hall of Fame with some class, that was not called for.
Funny, but I did not see NY Times do an article on Dolan's Msg tax exceptions or interview workers around Msg struggling in this economy when they sign free agents but the Times had a reporter in Newark Tuesday for public reaction to Kovalchuk's signing.
Where was the NY Times to interview the public on economy when Yankees needed hundreds of million in tax exemptions, the exact same week they spent 500m on three baseball contracts?
That's right, the same NY Times was reporting on additional bonds that in-effect paid baseball players for both the Yankees and Mets being approved, that helped them finance their stadium construction.
I wonder who NY Times interviews when it's the Giants-Jets, given they claim them as New York, but New Jersey residents pay for the building?
So do some of you still want to keep blaming Charles Wang?
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NHL.com: Deputy Commissioner, Bill Daly's statement regarding Kovalchuk contract rejection.
NYIFC Comments:
No doubt the " sources " will be out in force for page views/attention.
Lou Lamoriello vs NHL on-paper is a nice battle, but precedent has been set, and approved with many recent front-loaded contracts, it will likely only require some mild tweaking to final years of how Kovalchuk's money is distributed, and a contract will be approved.
Unless Jay Grossman turns into Mark Gandler.
As for Mr Gandler, what part of his claim the New York Islanders had an interest in Alexei Yashin did he really believe translates into any interest in actually signing him, after he did this two years ago?
At least Greg Logan/Newsday were not around to botch the headline and issue another retraction this time.
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A little less than two months until training camp, a lot of time to sign or trade for that one scorer Garth Snow indicated he needed when he contacted Kovalchuk's agent by his own words.
Niederreiter, Petrov, Joensuu/Figren could be better than some of those options too, so could giving Trent Hunter's spot to one of them, and adding a scorer in return.
From what I see no chance Travis Hamonic and Calvin deHaan are brought to the NHL at the same time, no chance one of them stay under contract out of the NHL for the next two years.
One of them will have to make this team with a five preseason game window, and split squad games where regulars will have to play those games.
Hint:
If player is in Coliseum lineup, he makes team.
If he is in the Quebec City lineup, no.
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