CBA negotiations begin ugly

With news surrounding the Rangers at a stand-still, I'm going to start talking about bigger matters, beginning with the on-going talks between the NHLPA and the NHL on a new collective bargaining agreement. As reported on Friday night, the NHL owners laid out their first somewhat formal proposal and truth be told, I'm not as optimistic now about the season starting on time as I was Friday morning.

The first proposal laid down by the owners is a 54%-46% split in favor of the owners in terms of hockey related revenues. Currently the players enjoy a 57%-43% advantage, a big reason why the salary cap ceiling has sharply risen almost every year since the lockout. Although you have to take into account that this is just a starting point for the owners, you can bet the NHLPA will fight this aggressively as a swing that large will force the players accept a rollback in salaries, in turn dramatically altering the salary cap ceiling downward.

We've all seen recently the absurd contract lengths NHL front offices around the league have offered to un-restricted free agents to wiggle their way around the salary cap and at the same time giving players the money they think they're worth on the open market in the form of heavily front loaded contracts. The second proposal from the owners is limiting contracts to just 5 years with the same salary from year to year to close the loophole teams have enjoyed for the past few seasons. In my opinion, of all the proposals the NHL offered today, this is the one, (perhaps with some fine tuning) that will stick to the wall.

In addition to limiting contracts to just 5 seasons, the owners proposed entry level deals to be extended from 3 to 5 seasons rewarding teams who draft well by keeping their young talent longer.

Speaking of UFA's, players have to accrue 7 seasons before being eligible for unrestricted free agency. The 7 year rule is by far the toughest in the 4 major sports and will be another tough issue with the NHLPA especially since the owners now want to stretch that to 10 years. Personally, I think that 10 years is absurd and will probably be negotiated back down, but at what cost to the players?

It can't be stressed enough that all of the aforementioned proposals are just a jumping off point in negotiations in the days and weeks to come. We all hope cooler heads prevail and hockey is able to avoid another lockout of any duration which will severely hamper the growth of the NHL just as its beginning to become popular again in the mainstream.