When will NHL teams learn?
On Thursday, not one, but two extremely long contracts were reportedly signed involving a couple of stars. Kings playoff hero Jonathan Quick signed a reported 10-year extension and Sidney Crosby signed a massive $104.4-million, 12-year deal.
More on Quick later – let’s get on this idiotic Crosby deal.
First things first: He’s the best player in hockey right now*
*-When he’s healthy.
While that asterisk is only normal size on your screen, it should be a massive one in your mind. Crosby has only played 28 games in the past 18 months thanks to concussion issues. You know, the same issues that ended the career of a very promising superstar named Eric Lindros early.
This might be the riskiest deal in NHL history. You have a guy that has suffered multiple concussion and plays a game where he is being hit constantly. There is no guarantee that he can make through a game still standing, let alone a season, let alone 12 of them.
It’s very easy to imagine Crosby missing nearly an entire season and clogging up $8.7-million worth of the Penguins’ salary cap. Why is it easy? Because it just happened last season but at a lower cost.
The nature of concussions is that once you’ve suffered one, you’re more susceptible in the future. That should be scary news to the Penguins and their fans, but it’s not news. We’ve known this for a while now.
This isn’t like he’s coming back from knee or shoulder surgery; this is his brain we’re talking about. We’ve seen what concussions have done to former NFL players and the last thing we want to see is another story of massive depression, dementia and even suicide.
Of course, should he stay healthy and continue to score nearly a point and a half per game. Then Pittsburgh look like geniuses. Sadly, I think this story doesn’t have the happiest of endings, especially towards the end of this contact.
Oh, did I mention that this deal runs until 2025! Who even knows if hockey will exist then? We don’t even know if there will be a season starting this October. 2025? By then the robot uprising could be in full swing with Skynet hunting down the remainder of the human race.
As for Quick, well, we have two names that the Kings probably don’t want to hear: Roberto Luongo and Mike Dipietro. Both signed incredibly long deals and both aren’t even starting on their teams any more. Of course the Dipietro contract was always an idiotic move, but with Luongo it was a slow, steady decline. He’s now out of favour in Vancouver and on the trading block. Good luck dealing a guy who has six seasons left on his contract at a big cap hit and getting fair value.