ESPN's Pierre LeBrun has released a second set of nuts-and-bolts information about the new collective bargaining agreement, and there's a strange twist to what he's calling the "Luongo Rule"--a.k.a. punitive penalties retroactively imposed upon teams that issued "lifetime" contracts to retain their own players, especially if said players are eventually traded:
This is another rule from the league aimed at hammering current back-diving deals (front-loaded, "cheat deals." However, this has changed from its original form when the NHL first proposed it in October.
In the original formula, if a player like Roberto Luongo was traded and retired before the end of his deal, the Canucks (the team who signed him to the contract) would assume his remaining $5.33-million cap early hit in retirement. The new rule in this tentative agreement is different. Now, for any contract in excess of six years, both teams involved in a trade on a contract like Luongo’s would be penalized if he retired before the end of his deal.
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