With all the recent long term deals....

[MarioLives]

With all these long term deals being signed, do any of you take this as the players knowing they are going to lose that part of the CBA? I know that these long term deals are one of the issues the owners want dealt with. If the players know they are going to lose that, it makes sense to sign them now, right?

[KG]

Yes...that's' why Shane Doan came out in a recent interview and guaranteed he will sign a deal with a club before 9/15...

[interstorm]

This post of mine pretty much sums up (and reality confirmed) that any big time player who can get guaranteed big money now will do whatever is in their power to get it. As I say in there -- I don't think the players "know" what is coming...just the opposite really. If you had the chance to sign a 12 year deal for almost $100 million at a time when talks are ongoing about restricting such deals, wouldn't you do it? Say Parise or virtually any other player who signed one of these things sees their production decline greatly over the next 5 years -- if they didn't have the mega-deal signed (and instead had something shorter), they could potentially find their next contract not anywhere in the same ballpark. Look at Ovechkin -- if he has another ho-hum season (and yes, I know his ho-hum is actually not too bad) -- would you see anyone throwing a $10 million/year contract on him?

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