NHL Negotiations: No 'substantive progress', but two sides will accelerate pace of talks

Sunday, April 24, 2005

The official word was "no substantive progress" was made in Tuesday's negotiating session between the NHL and NHLPA.  But the two sides did agree to meet more frequently over the next few weeks in hopes of moving forward.

The NHL and NHLPA met for six-and-a-half hours Tuesday in New York. It was the first negotiating since the April 4 meeting when the two sides began discussing a possible concept for going forward.

That concept apparently was again the focus of the talks on Tuesday. 

"While we continued to discuss various issues relating to the concept that was introduced at our April 4 meeting, no substantive progress toward a new agreement was made," NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly said in a statement released after the session. "The parties have agreed to arrange a more aggressive meeting schedule over the next several weeks in an attempt to move the process forward. We remain committed to doing everything we can to reach a negotiated solution as soon as possible."

The NHLPA's Ted Saskin indicated there was no progress and suggested the league was still trying to lock players into a fixed percentage of league revenues.

"While we discussed many of the issues related to the concept that we introduced at our last meeting, we were unable to make any progress today," said NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin. "I remain concerned that the NHL is not serious about developing new concepts together and remains fixated on measuring all of our proposed concepts against a linked hard-cap system. I fail to see how we can make any progress if the NHL maintains their single-track approach."

The concept, which was proposed by the NHLPA, would tie a salary cap to league revenues. If revenues go up, the cap would go up. If the cap goes down, the cap would decrease.

The NHLPA's numbers reportedly contained a $50 million cap and a mininum team payroll  based on $2 billion in revenues. The league has indicated it wants a lower cap and the gap between the maximum and minimum payrolls cut in half.

"I think there is going to be some real tough sledding over those numbers and there is no question in my mind that it is going to be very difficult to try to get anything going here at all," TSN analyst Bob McKenzie said on the network Tuesday evening. "I got the sense going into this meeting today that maybe it was going to blow up real fast. That didn't happen, so maybe that is a small positive. The fact that they are going to meet more frequently give us some hope but, quite frankly, the best you can say it was neutral."

Burke, also appearing on TSN, thought the increase in the frequency of meetings was significant.

"The aggressive scheduling of meetings, I think that is huge," said Burke. "Because even if if they didn't make progress today the fact that they are going to be in a room over a period of time with more frequency, that does increase the odds of making a deal."

The focus now turns to Wednesday's Board of Governors meeting in New York. The contentious issue of replacements players is expected to be a hot topic.

Commissioner Gary Bettman wouldn't talk specifics after Tuesday's negotiating session, but he indicated that the plan is to start the NHL season on time one way or another.

"My stance on starting the season hasn't changed," he was quoted as saying by the Canadian Press. "What I have said is that we are going to start the season on time and that is a plan that will continue to be in place. But I do have a board meeting tomorrow and we have a number of issues and options and matters to discuss with the board so I can talk more about that tomorrow."

On the issue of replacements, former Vancouver Canucks general manager Brian Burke said he believes a majority of general managers and owners are against going that route.

"I think there is a very significant split. I think there is a split at the GM level that is quite pronounced. I would say as many as 25 maybe even, but certainly in the 20 range don't want anything do with it," Burke said during an appearance on TSN. "I think the ownership group is about two-thirds to come out that same way."