By John Manasso, Foxsportssouth.com
July 14, 2010
Update: Read Kovalchuk's free agency decision here.
It's Day 14 of Ilya Kovalchuk's first venture into unrestricted free agency and many observers -- not to mention writers -- are tired of what seems to be the unending tedium of the negotiations. If the NHL's popularity in the United States were on a par with the NFL's, we'd clearly be in Brett Favre territory in terms of saturation coverage.
One member of the Twitterati listed the search term "mexicanstandoff" to punctuate his disgust with the inaction on Wednesday. Pierre LeBrun, among the most respected and level-headed of NHL writers, wrote on Day 8 of the Kovalchuk Saga, "Ok - that's last Kovalchuk update from this cat until the guy finally signs. I'm sick of this story. Over and out." Of course, it wasn't his last.
This is what happens when one is negotiating against one's self. Say what you want about former Thrashers general manager and current president Don Waddell, but one of his strengths was negotiating contracts and carefully watching over his payroll. When Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley hit the market as restricted free agents after the lockout ended in the summer of 2005, I asked him if he had made them offers.
Why should he, he responded? His offer was the qualifying offer that he had signed -- which, in Kovalchuk's case, ended up being about $5 million per year less than the deal Kovalchuk ultimately signed. Waddell's point was to let the agents make the first offer so that he was not giving the agent a higher starting off point than necessary.
Understandably, that strategy has its risks -- that year Columbus gave Rick Nash an outsized contract that ended up costing the Thrashers a lot of money with Kovalchuk -- but since he had the right to match any offer made by another NHL team to Kovalchuk, Waddell knew that the negotiation was mainly between himself and the player -- the basic dynamic of any negotiation being that more than one bidder has to exist to drive up the price (notice how baseball super-agent Scott Boras always has a mystery team involved in the negotations to inflate his asking price). In Kovalchuk's case, the player gained leverage by his threat to play in what was then called the Russian Super League (now the KHL), which seemed real, and he got himself a good contract, albeit one that eventually was dwarfed quickly by other free agents'.
I can only imagine what thoughts are now going through the mind of Kovalchuk, who turned down $101 million from the Thrashers. He may yet get that money and his refusal of the Thrashers' may be vindicated, but indications are pointing otherwise. If teams were fighting over him, driving up his price, wouldn't he have already signed for more than that offer?
My guess, and this is 100 percent speculation, is that Kovalchuk is sweating bullets over the decision of having to take less money or play in the KHL. From having covered him virtually over the entire length of his career in Atlanta, I have pretty good insight into his mindset, and he clearly wants to play for a winner while also getting the money he thinks he is worth -- that is, having his cake and eating it, too.
So many factors are involved, not the least of which is ego. In his mind, Kovalchuk thinks of himself as being, if not on par with, then just a hair below the skills and worth of friend, rival and fellow Russian left wing Alex Ovechkin. And so he wants Ovechkin-like money, which is 13 years and $124 million (a $9.54 million average). Why else would Kovalchuk have turned down a contract that would have averaged $8.4 million from the Thrashers?
Kovalchuk's threat to play in Russia in 2005 seemed real because the Thrashers controlled his rights. Players like Alexei Yashin and Nikolai Khabibulin (like Kovalchuk, also a client of agent Jay Grossman's, so the Thrashers knew the tactic was not just an idle threat) had sat out years. It was a risky move, but it was a somewhat proven tactic. Yashin and Khabibulin eventually got NHL deals that made their years out of the NHL plenty worth it.
Were Kovalchuk to jump to the KHL in 2010 when all 30 teams have the right to bid on him, he would essentially be admitting that no market existed for his services in the NHL at the price that he believes he deserves. In a way, it would be admitting defeat. Kovalchuk is nothing if not proud and he would not make that move without a great deal of crow-eating.
Furthermore, he wants to prove he ranks among the best players in the world -- something he has proved so far only statistically and at lesser competitions like the IIHF World Championships -- and that he can win in the best league in the world, which he knows the KHL is not. And if that were not enough, he loves the amenities that North America offers -- lifestyle and such -- and despises some of the Soviet Era-coaching styles in the KHL. When I visited him in Russia in 2004 during the lockout, he offered this memorable quote, "We're like prisoners here," he said. "Everyone knows everything around [here]. You go to some bar or restaurant and the bill directly goes to [the team's general] manager."
So if he were to take a KHL team's money under a coaching style that might well chafe under, it would be akin to what they say about paying a cheap price to move into a transitional neighborhood in order to reap the rewards when the market booms: You earn every penny.
Taking a look at the public statements coming out of what seem to be the only two teams bidding on Kovalchuk -- New Jersey and Los Angeles -- he's not going to get a deal that exceeds the Thrashers' $101-million, $8.4-million-per-year offer. LeBrun Tweeted on July 8 that Kings general manager Dean Lombardi "needs a cap-friendly deal."
A contract in the neighborhood of $8- or $9-million-per is not a cap-friendly deal. The reason more teams are not bidding on Kovalchuk is that they already have locked up what they deem to be their core players, in some cases in deals of longer than 10 years, and have no cap room for a lengthy deal that Kovalchuk desires. The deal of Marian Hossa -- Kovalchuk's former teammate who has played in three straight Stanley Cups, winning one, while Kovalchuk's career playoff record is 1-8 -- is cap-friendly, averaging $5.23 million. Yet Hossa will still make $7.9 million per season for the foreseeable future.
The Devils, as is always the case, are more opaque in their dealings than the Kings, with general manager Lou Lamoriello basically only saying that the situation is "status quo." The Devils have never given out contracts exceeding the market, as their biggest stars over the years (Martin Brodeur and Scott Stevens) have taken the hometown discount. If players wanted their money, they had to go elsewhere. So the idea of Kovalchuk getting more than $8.4 million per year from the Devils seems ludicrous.
So, there it is. Kovalchuk has made his bed. He can take the KHL's money and swallow his pride or he can take the Kings or Devils' lesser offers, giving himself a chance to win a Stanley Cup in the best league in the world -- while also swallowing his pride.
In any event, something is going to have to give.
