They probably should have thought about stuff like this when they were proofing the CBA.
NBA on the other hand has every little nook and cranny covered.
See, I think, as long as the team is still required to pay out the rest of the contract (which I believe they are), then there really is no problem with it. I like loopholes like that, that allow teams to keep their best players.
The problem I have with it is that it's handicapping franchises way down the road, when the current management probably won't be involved.
I mean, it's cool having Kovalchuk for a $6 million cap hit now; he's a great player. However, having $6 million in your salary cap for the next 17 years -- probably long after Kovalchuk retires -- is the type of deal that can kill a franchise (especially, of course, if teams started signing multiple stars to such deals).
It's like in the NBA, when New York started cashing in all its future first rounders. The league put in two rules: a team can't trade first round draft picks in two consecutive future drafts, and you can't deal a first rounder in a draft that is more than seven years away. These rules protect teams from themselves, and from bad management.
I'd like to see the NHL close this loophole; it probably makes sense to adopt a max length of contracts (with the NBA's current max of six probably being a good place to start.)