League makes its offers

Sunday, April 24, 2005

The NHL made two proposals to the NHLPA in New York Thursday, but Players' Association chief Bob Goodenow indicated there wasn't much new in the offers.  The numbers were different though.

One of the league's offers was apparently a "de-linked" system with a salary cap set at $37.5 million. That's a five million drop in the cap from the league's last offer of $42.5 million.

This time the league did include a minimum team salary of $22.5 million. That's something the league didn't offer in their previous cap offer without linkage.  The proposal also allowed for the gap to grow if league revenues increased. Another element that was missing from the previous "de-linked" offer.

The league's other offer was a linked system where players would get 54 percent of league revenues. That's down from about the 55 percent of league revenues the league had been offering in earlier linkage proposals.

After the meeting and the proposals, Goodenow offered this statement: "Last week, Gary asked me how to resume discussions for a new CBA. I told Gary to bring forward any proposal that he believed would be of interest to the players.

"Today, Gary gave us two salary cap proposals. Both proposals were very similar to ones that we previously rejected several times. We will be determining our next steps and responding at the appropriate time."

NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly offered this comment in a news release: "We made another collective bargaining proposal today which offered the Union a choice of two approaches for moving forward.

"The first proposal was based on the 'de-linked' salary cap framework that was on the table when the season was cancelled in mid-February. We indicated that to the extent this was a framework that the Union remained interested in pursuing, the League would be prepared to continue negotiations -- provided an agreement could be achieved within the next several weeks.

"Alternatively, we proposed a negotiated relationship between total Player Compensation and League-wide revenues, which we made clear was our preference.

"The Union deferred responding to our new proposal, pending internal discussions it intends to conduct over the next week. We will have no further comment at this time regarding the precise details of our proposal."

Both Sportsnet and TSN in Canada report that league sources have confirmed that an NHL Board of Governors meeting will be held April 20.

"It would be to discuss results of homework assignments clubs were all given, and to make some decisions," a source told Sportsnet.

Those homework assignments reportedly involved teams being asked to evaluate various replacement options along with the possibility of continuing the lockout into next season.

Sportsnet also reported that the NHLPA Executive Committee has three days of meetings planned in Toronto next week.