It appears that this goatfuck is finally reaching a conclusion, albeit a not entirely expected one.
Numerous outlets are reporting that an agreement regarding long term deals has finally been reached, and Ilya Kovalchuk’s 15 year, $100 mildo deal has been approved/grandfathered into the new stipulations. These stipulations apparently include that the last five years of a deal need to average at least $1 million, and reduced salary past the age of 40 can’t be used to soften the cap hit. Marian Hossa’s deal will be grandfathered in also, as his contract presently does not meet these conditions, albeit only by one year, the last year of his deal, when he will be 41 at the start of the 2020-2021 season at a rate of $750K. His last five years, though, do indeed average out to $1.5 million.
While it’s not entirely equitable, all of the other teams prior to this point had an opportunity to sign players to similar deals, and those parameters can still be worked within to create cap-friendly long-term contracts (Hello, Brent Seabrook). This also allegedly means the players have to pay less into escrow, but all of the specifics of that could probably be explained by someone far more well-versed in the CBA than I am. This is probably about the best the NHL and PA could do with this given the situation of the existing contracts it already approved, because all hell would have broken loose had they not grandfathered these contracts in.