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When is a contract too rich for a player’s own good? It is an odd question, but one that comes up repeatedly in the strange case of Vancouver goalie Roberto Luongo.

It seems as if the new collective bargaining agreement restricts the Canucks’ ability to trade Luongo, in effect trapping him. He has long wanted to be traded, and the Canucks have long sought to trade him, but he is stuck in place.

At a news conference shortly after the trade deadline passed Wednesday, Luongo rued the terms of his 12-year, $64 million contract, which runs through 2021-22, one of the best deals for an N.H.L. goalie. He said it was the reason he remained with the Canucks.

“It’s a big factor in trading me and why I’m probably still here,” Luongo said. “I’d scrap it if I could right now.”

What is it about Luongo’s contract that is keeping him from moving elsewhere? Some of it is his high salary in real dollars: he will make $6.7 million annually through 2017-18.

Some of it is his salary-cap hit, $5.33 million, representing the annual average value of his 12-year deal. With the salary cap going down about 9 percent next season as part of the new C.B.A., some teams are reluctant to add that much under the cap.

Those would not be novel reasons to squelch a trade. But a new wrinkle has emerged, a complicated provision in the new agreement that has become known as the Luongo Rule, because it came to light in January amid rumors that he might be traded to Toronto.

In the new collective bargaining agreement, it is called the Cap Advantage Recapture system. This clause applies to all players with contracts of seven years or longer, but who retire before the contract expires.

It charges the player’s teams for cap space based on the benefit the teams received if the player’s actual salary was larger than his average salary. It applies in the case of Luongo, who for the next several seasons will make at least $1.3 million per year more in real dollars than his average salary.

The thorniest part of the recapture provision for Luongo is that if he is traded, the team that acquires him shares in the salary cap charges if he retires early.

That is a distinct possibility in Luongo’s case. He will be 42 when his contract expires in 2022. Under the provision, if the Maple Leafs acquire Luongo now to address their goaltending needs, they will be on the hook for a lot of money if Luongo retires before he turns 42. That has had a chilling effect for any team interested in him. Luongo’s annual salary eventually begins dropping, falling to $1 million in each of the deal’s final two seasons.

Structuring the contract this way allowed the Canucks to keep Luongo’s salary-cap hit — based on the annual average salary — reasonable at only $5.33 million, lower than the $6.7 million cap hit in his previous contract.

“At the time it was done, it was very favorable for this organization and very favorable for Roberto,” Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis said last week.

This so-called backdiving practice on long-term contracts, however, was frowned upon by the league office, which inserted anti-cap-circumvention language into the 2005 C.B.A.

A number of players besides Luongo negotiated backdiving deals, Philadelphia’s Chris Pronger, Chicago’s Marian Hossa and Detroit’s Henrik Zetterberg among them. The Devils’ Ilya Kovalchuk had one, too, but the league invalidated it in 2010.

One of the league’s goals in negotiating the new C.B.A. was stricter and more precise language to prevent excessive backdiving and, apparently, to penalize teams, like the Canucks, that had negotiated these contracts under the previous agreement.

But this provision, which did not exist in any previous N.H.L. labor agreement, is penalizing everyone involved. It does not work for the player; it does not work for the team trying to trade him; and it does not work for the team trying to acquire him.

Luongo is still a good goaltender who could provide quality play for a team looking for an upgrade. Gillis said at least five teams had inquired about making a deal for him.

“I do feel obligated to trade Roberto and get him into position where he’s happy and competing the way he likes to and the level he’s accustomed to,” Gillis said.

But Luongo’s contract is an impediment. And so is the new labor agreement, which seems to have rendered Luongo the first victim of the Luongo Rule.