Canucks sign Luongo to another one of these magic 12 year deals. I wonder what Brian Burke is gonna say about this one? Reportedly 64 million over 12 years....so, a cap hit of 5.3 million until he is 42 years old!

Ouch. I'm thinking Luo has no plans to play until he is 42, and then by Burke and his convincing argument on contract law...it's illegal to structure a contract with no plans to fulfill it. I unfortunately can't find that artical, but there is another one here. The thing is, if the Canucks can get Luo for 5.3 cap hit, that's bad news for the Flames, as it frees up about 1.5-2 million from their salary cap woes versus what he is likely though to be worth (~7 mil/season). The initial reports out here in Vancouver were 4 years @ 28 million, which was quite wrong, BUT if we assume that it was true about the first 4 years then the contract could likely look like this:

7.0, 7.0, 7.0, 7.0, 6.5, 6.5, 6.5, 6.5, 4.0, 3.0, 2.0, 1.0  - 5.3 mil cap. hit (contract to age 42)

or maybe like this:

7.9, 7.9, 7.9, 7.9, 7.9, 7.9, 7.9, 4.0, 1.0, 1.0, .750, .750 - 5.23 mil cap. hit (contract to age 42)

Oh, whoops....that's the Marian Hossa contract.

So, it looks like the Flames will have to be facing Luongo for this year and another 8 after that, until he's 38-39 when he'll likely retire and commit 'contractual fraud' according to the ever entertaining Brian Burke. Although, when the new collective bargaining agreement is negotiated, this could all come back to bite the 'nucks in the nutz. We'll see. It's certain though that they are announcing that they plan to pay to win the cup now and borrow against 'the later.' Who is that Rick....Di....something something out in New York?

So bad news for the NHL, who will likely be adding Luongo to the names Hossa and Chris Pronger as investigation cases...

and bad news for Flames fans who will have years and years of being stymied by Roberto Luongo.

At least they have a year to plan for it.