NHL barking up wrong tree with contract examinations

Now that official word came down from the NHL that it will also investigate Chris Pronger's seven-year contract with the Flyers, it makes the Blackhawks look way less suspicious and the league more paranoid.

As far as I have read, not one source of the story, either from the league itself or from reported outlets, has quoted a violation of any league rule with respect to the way the money in both deals is spread out.

What I did hear was that Gary Bettman was upset that Chicago and Philly violated the "spirit" of the salary cap with some creative accounting.

Oh, their bad...I guess.

NHLPA head Paul Kelly also chimed in over the weekend, telling Tim Panaccio that both deals were well within the parameters of the existing rules behind the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Granted, Kelly is a lawyer acting on behalf of these athletes that get paid and don't care how the money is presented (as long as they get all of it), but again, if his legal acumen and research proves that no rules were broken, the NHL itself will be hard pressed to quote a chapter or verse in defense of their investigation.

As long as there will be former hockey players or businessmen in charge of purse strings or contracts, the competitive nature of capitalism will have free rein. If there's a loophole to be found because these people are not smart enough to fit every contract under the cap by straightforward means, there will be GMs and owners who will find it and exploit it.

Perhaps that's why Bettman is reacting like an angry schoolmarm in sending his G-Men to suss out the situation - the back-room dealing which marks his legal upbringing was once again exposed for the benefit of someone else other than what he controls.

But still...no rules were actually broken.

I can see how "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" agreements being exposed are not good PR for a league still struggling with relevance, but that's the price of business across the globe.

If Bettman wants changes to be made, the current CBA expires in two years, and I'm sure he can build a consensus working with the players' association to make appropriate changes and/or compromise.

Instead, he's got a PR nightmare on his hands as in both Hossa and Pronger's cases, as the facts for both have seemingly been presented as if there was untoward cheating behind each contract and not the usual manipulation to save the Hawks and Flyers financial headaches down the line.

The story behind the story really is, why are general managers in the NHL loading up players near the end of their careers with long multi-year contracts in the first place?

These are contracts based on pure speculation, and apparently not based on prior experience.

In reality, everyone needs to find out what is the actual benefit of enticing players to end their careers with any club if there's the guarantee of a front-loaded deal. Why is there the sudden fear that players near the end of the line with some impact won't sign with a team unless they're showed the money up front?

The supposed effect is for short-term cap pain, there is more cap space to be gained on the back end in the future.

Of course, that future can get very cloudy based on the year-to-year fluctuation in the actual salary cap number, never mind the changing fortunes of the team on the ice which is guaranteed to predicate some emergency moves which might involve unreasonable amounts of cash.

Maybe it's this style of thinking which locks teams into this cyclical problem in the future anyway, and it's easy to see how it might occur again, especially if neither Hossa nor Pronger decide to hang up the skates at a time which each man's team might have expected.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that neither Dale Tallon nor Paul Holmgren committed any kind of fraud or broke any rule in creating these deals, however you may feel about the contracts themselves.

It'll just be an embarrassing mess when the league, just to save face, makes up some ridiculous token penalty which may or may not act as a deterrent.

Meanwhile, with one door of opportunity closing, the remaining 28 general managers and owners will get to work on finding another loophole in another rule to get what they need.