Rick DiPietro, initially slated for a mid-December return, had a set-back in his rehab from knee injury. The Islanders are seeking additional medical opinions on their young netminder who left an AHL game last Friday with leg stiffness. It was only his second game of a conditioning assignment. He hasn’t played in the NHL since last January. Since signing a 15-year, $67.5 million contract before the start of the 2006-2007 season DiPietro has played a total of 130 games. However, he has only played five since last season. This is only one of the major reasons teams should be wary of signing their players to such long-term deals.

The DiPietro deal was perplexing on multiple levels. First, he really only had one good year prior to the contract extension. In the year before the lockout he won 23 games with a 2.36 GAA and .911 save percentage. He even recorded 5 shutouts. After sitting out the lockout, DiPietro returned with mediocre numbers in 2005-2006 and was then rewarded with his major deal. I can’t fault the Isles for re-signing their franchise goalie, but the term is ridiculous. How can you give a 15-year deal to a young player you don’t really know much about. It wasn’t like he was consistently producing since draft day. The second reason this deal was perplexing is because the Islanders already locked up a 28 year-old Alexei Yashin for 10 years and $87.5 million in 2001. Didn’t they learn after Yashin’s production declined precipitously to the point where the Isles bought him out in March 2007? In fact, the Isles will be paying for Yashin until the 2015.

The Islanders case study should be a warning to the rest of the league. Long-term deals are very risky. I guess the real effects of these long-term contracts won’t be realized until the next decade when many of today’s stars begin to age. Over the past years we’ve seen long-term deals given to Marian Hossa (12 years, $62.8 million), Duncan Keith (13 years, $72 million), Henrik Zetterberg (12 year, $73 million), Johan Franzen (11 years, $43.5 million), Mike Richards (12 years, $69 million), Vincent Lecavalier (11 years, $85 million), Roberto Luongo (12 years, $64 million), and Alexander Ovechkin (13 years, $124 million). This does not even include players like Chris Pronger who signed long-term deals in their mid-30s that will last until their early 40s.

Each of these deals has varying degrees of risk to them. The Mike Richards deal is probably the safest considering the reasonable cap hit and the contract will conclude before he is 35. Both the Hossa and Lecavalier deals are probably the riskiest considering they were both signed close to 30 years old and are signed until their early 40s. These deals are risky because there is no way that near the end of these deals, when they are mid-to-late 30s, these players can match their production in the 20s.