Well this is insane but with the Islanders it's to be expected. After all, this is the franchise that has given us "Mad" Mike Milbury, Garth Snow as GM, that $87 million 10-year contract to Alexei Yashin and now this crazy 15-year deal.
This is definetely Charles Wang's doing, who, I assume, fancies himself as a sort of George Steinbrenner type owner.
A few points:
-shorter contracts tend to produce players who push themselves more, especially in their contract year. DiPietro can have a bad season and still know that he's staying put and getting a decent salary
-should the Isles need to trade him , who would take on such a contract?
-longer contracts in the salary cap era are completely crazy, as no knows what a future cap ceiling would look like. For all we know in 5 years the NHL could lose revenue and see it's cap shrink by millions. So, a contract of this nature is completely can handcuff the Islanders for years to come
-if DiPietro makes it to the end of the contract he would have played 19 years in the NHL. To date only 8 goalies in the ENTIRE history of the league have played 19 years or more. So, DiPietro will more than likely not finish this contract—but who cares, since it's guaranteed anyway? He's set for life.