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*Official* CBA Negotiations and Lockout Thread


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Not looking like the players think a deal is going to happen any time soon. P. Kane just signed with EHC of the Swiss league, and Enstrom is going to Red Bull Salzburg to join our Grenier. You think that these guys would have signed sooner if they were pessimistic about negotiations, I guess attitudes change.

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Hadn't seen this posted yet and thought it was a reasonable read:

10 things that must happen for NHL lockout to end

The NHL lockout has lasted more than a month and a key Thursday deadline looms for the league to hold a full season. What needs to happen for the lockout to end?

1. Individual contracts have to be honored

Players are more unified on this issue than they were about preventing a salary cap in 2004-05. It has become a rallying cry, a symbol of solidarity, and owners have no one to blame but themselves. Teams were way too eager to sign players to long-term deals this summer (such as the 13-year, $98 million deals to new Minnesota Wild teammates Zach Parise and Ryan Suter), and now the impression is that they signed those players believing the deals would be reduced by the new labor agreement. Does that seem like good-faith bargaining? Any new collective bargaining agreement will have to include real protection for those contracts. That means it will have to have minimal salary rollback in the first couple of seasons.

2. Deal has to end with a true 50-50 split

That has been the owners' objective from the beginning, and there will have to be an absolute in at least the final two years of the deal. Players are offering legitimate concessions, but they are still dancing around the 50-50 number without embracing it. Owners will want a hard 50-50 number at the end, and not an "if-then" proposal.

3. Players need to win on vast majority of secondary issues

When you are asking players for more than $1 billion in concessions, you can't also ask them to accept a longer wait for free agency, reduced arbitration rights or more restrictive individual contract conditions. With a salary cap and a 50-50 split, why do owners need a more restrictive player environment?

4. Stop trying to win public relations war

The PR war is over and both sides lost. Fans are generally blaming both sides for the lack of progress, and it will be a PR disaster for both sides if there is no season. Let's just stipulate that players are mad at Commissioner Gary Bettman and believe this is a money grab, and then let's stipulate that owners are miffed because they believe players are making proposals with a theme they know owners won't accept. Nobody wins the blame game, except the journalists who write about it.

5. The stars must be stars

Bettman and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr are highly experienced at high-level negotiations, and they need to get in a room and talk in practical terms about an end game to this lockout. Straight talk. No spin. No news conferences afterward. It's really a misnomer to suggest that the two sides have been engaged in negotiations. There has been almost no negotiating. It's like having Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin on the bench, and neither is playing.

6. Players need to embrace practicality instead of principle

What you hear around the hockey world is both sides believe this will end in November and the season will start after Thanksgiving. With that scenario, players would lose about five weeks (roughly 19.2%) of their pay, a bigger cut than the NHL is seeking with a drop in the players' share was trying to take from them in the demand that players share drop from 57% to 50%. Players seem to believe that has been the owners' plan all along to squeeze them as much as they could until then. If players believe that, they should make another offer this week with the idea of giving to give themselves a chance to play a full season and not miss any paycheck? Some modest movement in years three and four might be enough to prevent lost paychecks. Is there really principle involved when you are dividing up $3.3 billion? Or is simply a matter of getting as many dollars as you can?

7. Owners must accept this isn't 2004-05

Fehr has done a masterful job of unifying his group. He is a skilled communicator, and players say they are much better informed than they were the last time around. Owners can't target the NHLPA's No. 2 man either because the job is held by Fehr's brother, Steve, who is highly experienced in his own right. Plus, he seems to be the likely successor when Fehr retires. The NHL won't wear down this group.

8. Stop playing serve-and-volley on proposals

Does it matter whose turn it is to make a proposal? Instead of worrying about who blinked first, or if they look weak by making two proposals in a row, let's concentrate simply on getting a proposal. They have to get in a room this week and make a painful effort to reach a deal that will allow a full season to be played. Both sides would have to feel some pain to make this compromise work. It might help if they simply talk about the $1.65 billion they are arguing instead of percentages, and then work back from the money to the percentages.

9. Outside pressures needed

How about NBC reminding the NHL how committed it has been to giving the league first-class treatment? The NBC Sports Network clearly counts on the league for programming, and it can't be pleased by this turn of events. Presumably, NBC also isn't happy that the NHL is considering canceling the Winter Classic in Ann Arbor, Mich. That should draw high ratings as people tune in to see if 120,000 fans come to the Big House to watch outdoor hockey.

10. View a lost season as Armageddon

Although the league continued to prosper after the last lockout, there is no guarantee that will happen again. In fact, it is plausible that some fans won't return. In the last lockout, most fans accepted the need for a lockout to bring about a salary cap that would allow competitive balance. Most fans view this fight as simply a battle over dollars. There seems to be a chance that an extended lockout would do damage to the sport.

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Players like Ovechkin and Kovalchuk say if their salaries are cut they will not return to the NHL. Truth is, Ovechkin is not really an exciting player anymore and does not draw my attention to watch him play. Sure I want hockey back but listening to Ovechkin makes me sick to my stomach.

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Players like Ovechkin and Kovalchuk say if their salaries are cut they will not return to the NHL. Truth is, Ovechkin is not really an exciting player anymore and does not draw my attention to watch him play. Sure I want hockey back but listening to Ovechkin makes me sick to my stomach.

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Guest Gumballthechewy

If there is no NHL season any hockey teams can play for the Stanley Cup right?

And if so why wasn't it played for last lockout?

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I wanted to link spending above the midpoint to revenue sharing tax to encourage good business sense. For instance, if San Jose is losing money, then why the heck are they spending to the cap limit?!! Understood it could go the other way too where a team like NYR would be below the midpoint and get revenue sharing (well not after the Redden rule kicks in).

Teams like VAN,BOS,PHI,CGY,CHI,MTL,TOR should be happy enough to contribute more to revenue pool for the option to spend to upper cap limit. If they don't like it, then just reduce the roster spending a bit. My gut feeling says they would spend to the cap limit every time.

Right now according to capgeek: PHX,NYI,OTT,DAL,STL,FLA,COL,NSH,ANA,NJD,WPG,CLB,CAR,PIT,DET are below that midpoint roughly. Seems like a good starting point to receive revenue sharing.

Perhaps it should be a formula that combines (total revenue, profit level, cap spending).

For instance, I would frown upon on a team like phoenix spending to the cap limit, having little revenue, negative profit margin. In that sort of case, maybe they shouldn't get revenue sharing due to bad business sense? Alternatively, if they spent closer to the cap floor, give them higher % revenue sharing.

Curious to hear more ideas on revenue sharing split. What's a fair system for all owners that encourages good business sense?

Edit

Would also like to see "making the playoffs" a factor in receiving revenue sharing for the bottom teams. A team managed well near the cap floor like Phoenix and Florida can make the playoffs and should get more somehow.

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Guest Gumballthechewy

I remember that too. There was a court challenge, but it took so long that the lockout was over.

Here's what I found on Wikipedia...

On February 7, 2006, a settlement was reached in which the trophy could be awarded to non-NHL teams should the league not operate for a season. The dispute lasted so long that, by the time it was settled, the NHL had resumed operating for the 2005–06 season, and the Stanley Cup went unclaimed for the 2004–05 season. Furthermore, when another NHL lockout commenced in 2012 the Trustees stated that the 2006 agreement did not oblige them to award the Cup in the event of a lost season, and that they were likely to reject any non-NHL challenges for the Cup in the event the 2012-13 season were cancelled.

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The problem with the cap circumventing deals is that it seems as though there is a sizeable contingent of owners who want to punish those that came up with those deals. I'm not sure that clause is going anywhere.

Donald Fehr is a dangerous man. It seems as though Paul Kelly had built a good relationship with the owners and Fehr has burned those bridges quickly.

I know that lots don't like Cox but this is a scary article if even somewhat true.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/nhl/article/1274610--nhl-lockout-players-pay-now-for-nhlpa-coup-cox

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I wanted to link spending above the midpoint to revenue sharing tax to encourage good business sense. For instance, if San Jose is losing money, then why the heck are they spending to the cap limit?!! Understood it could go the other way too where a team like NYR would be below the midpoint and get revenue sharing (well not after the Redden rule kicks in).

Teams like VAN,BOS,PHI,CGY,CHI,MTL,TOR should be happy enough to contribute more to revenue pool for the option to spend to upper cap limit. If they don't like it, then just reduce the roster spending a bit. My gut feeling says they would spend to the cap limit every time.

Right now according to capgeek: PHX,NYI,OTT,DAL,STL,FLA,COL,NSH,ANA,NJD,WPG,CLB,CAR,PIT,DET are below that midpoint roughly. Seems like a good starting point to receive revenue sharing.

Perhaps it should be a formula that combines (total revenue, profit level, cap spending).

For instance, I would frown upon on a team like phoenix spending to the cap limit, having little revenue, negative profit margin. In that sort of case, maybe they shouldn't get revenue sharing due to bad business sense? Alternatively, if they spent closer to the cap floor, give them higher % revenue sharing.

Curious to hear more ideas on revenue sharing split. What's a fair system for all owners that encourages good business sense?

Edit

Would also like to see "making the playoffs" a factor in receiving revenue sharing for the bottom teams. A team managed well near the cap floor like Phoenix and Florida can make the playoffs and should get more somehow.

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For the second time in as many months NHLers have been compared to livestock.

A month after Red Wings’ senior VP Jimmy Devellano received a fine for comments comparing professional hockey players to “cattle,” Bruins centre David Krejci went a similar route, slamming NHL commissioner Gary Bettman along the way over the weekend.

“(Bettman) does what he wants," Krejci told Czech publication iSport.cz. “We want to play, we're the ones who are (negotiating).

“It is unfortunate that the NHL have such a guy," he said in a translated interview. "It's a shame for the entire hockey world. (He) treats us like animals.”

Krejci, who was selected by Boston in the second round of the 2004 NHL draft, then targeted Bettman’s significant salary increase since the last lockout.

“Bettman took during the last lockout $3.5 million,” Krejci said, “now it's at $8 million.”

The Bruins re-upped Krejci late last year with a three-year deal reported to be worth close to $16 million.

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