NHL, NHLPA head back to the negotiating table this week

Sunday, April 24, 2005

In a normal year this would be a week filled with pivotal first round Stanley Cup playoff games. This year, however, it's a week of pivotal meetings in the NHL labor dispute as the league and NHLPA meet for another round of negotiations on Tuesday and then, one day later, the NHL Board of Governors get together.

Tuesday's negotiation session between the NHL and PA will be a test of suggestions that the two sides may have found a "workable concept" that could help push the stalemate towards a possible resolution.

Wednesday's Board of Governors meeting will be the strong test of owner unity as the subject of possibly using replacement players is expected to take center stage.

But the focus will begin with Tuesday's talks between the league and the NHLPA in New York. This will be the first get together since the two sides met in Toronto on April 4.

There was some optimism generated in that meeting because the two sides discussed -- as NHL chief legal officer Bill Daley described them -- "possible concepts for moving the process forward."

Those concepts, which were put forward by the PA, are apparently what generated some of the optimism. So was the tone of the tone of the talks, which was said to be void of the usual negativity. The numbers involved in all this are another story.

The concept is a variation of linkage. It doesn't link overall player costs to league revenues, as the league had been hoping.

Instead it links the upper level of the salary cap to league revenues. If league revenues drop, the upper level of the cap would drop. If league revenues go up, the cap would rise.

There was a feeling among many in the league, including Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs, that the system could work. The numbers were a different story.

There have been varying reports about what the PA offered, but the latest figures put the salary range at a $50 million maximum cap and a $30 million minimum based on $2 billion in league revenues.

In between the $30 million and $50 million levels there would supposedly be a threshold at which a luxury tax would kick in, and the $50 million figure would be the absolute hard cap over which no team could spend.

If the average team payroll falls in the middle that would give players about 60 percent of league revenues, which is much higher than the 54 to 55 percent figures the league has focused on during the process.

The feeling is that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman will try to push those floor and cap figures closer in line with the 54 to 55 percent figures the league has wanted all along. In other words, there is still a wide gap in the numbers.

Outside of the upper level of the cap moving up or down depending on the rise or decline in league revenues, the two sides have not done much to bridge the gap in the numbers or the other sticking points that existed when the season was canceled on February 16. Other issues include revenue sharing, salary arbitration, qualifying offers, and the entry level system to name a few key ones.

All that has led some to believe that the optimism generated from the last round of talks had little to do with the two sides making progress on a settlement, but more to do with something that could be a building block to progress.

"No substantive progress what so ever, but the tone and the climate have changed dramatically and I'll take that as a positive," former Vancouver GM Brian Burke said in an interview with radio station CKNW in Vancouver.

Whether that positive tone can lead to progress could become better known Tuesday.

In our next report, a look at the Board of Governors meeting and two potentially divisive issues -- replacement players and revenue sharing.