Dipietro signs 15 year contract

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=177223&hubname=nhl

Rick Dipietro of the New York Islanders re signed with the team today for another 15 years. The salary is worth a total of 67.5 million dollars over the course of the 15 years. DiPietro's agent and the owner of the Islanders, Charles Wang, were speaking about this deal the entire off season, and were always on the same path to getting the deal done, but finally the deal was made on Monday and announced Tuesday at a press conference. Rick DiPietro is very happy with this deal, as well are the entire staff of the New York Islanders because DiPietro is a good goalie, who has played for Team USA in the olympics as well as World Cup tournaments. The deal will pay DiPietro 4.5 million dollars annually.

I think that signing any player for 15 years is extremly stupid. Signing a player for 15 years meaning either you, or a team you trade the player to, is stuck with him for 15 years, or the remaining amount of time on the contract when the player is traded, but the annual pay remains the same. If Rick DiPietro somehow ends up to be bad this coming season and for the rest of his career ends up being like Jose Theodore, then the Islanders are going to be stuck paying a bad goalie 4.5 million dollars every year, or they can trade him, but no team is dumb enough to take a goalie with a salary like that when the goalie is not good. Basically in general I think it was a bad idea. But I find it interesting that the 15 year deal is the second longest in NHL yesterday, behind Wayne Gretzky's 21 year deal with the Edmonton Oilers. The only sports deal that was longer then that one, was Magic Johnson's 25 year, 25 million dollar deal.