Free Agency Restrictions Create Snag in NHL Talks

Negotiations aimed at saving what remains of the NHL season got off to an unpromising start when league representatives said they would drop their proposed payroll tax only if players accept more restrictions on free agency than had been agreed upon in principle during earlier talks.

According to the suggestion offered Sunday by NHL senior vice presidents Brian Burke and Jeff Pash, players would not be eligible for free agency until age 32, and the clubs that sign them would be required to compensate the players’ former clubs. In previous discussions, the league and the players’ association neared an accord that players would become unrestricted free agents at 31 for the first two years of the agreement, and at 30 thereafter.

Burke and Pash also stipulated that if those restrictions--and others already accepted by the NHLPA--did not have the desired effect of curbing salary growth after two years, the league would then have the right to impose a tax to inhibit salary escalation.

Sources familiar with the discussions held Sunday and Monday in Chicago offered little hope of a resolution in time for the season to start Jan. 16, the date specified by Commissioner Gary Bettman as the latest start for a 50-game schedule. A deal would have to be made by the end of this week to allow for a brief training camp.

“It’s discouraging,” a source allied with the union said. “What they put out there was worse than before. It was regurgitation, with a backward spin to it. . . .

“The only thing I can see is a pretty crummy deal made for a short time. That could be one philosophy, the union agrees to a non-tax deal with a bouillabaisse of concessions, with the provision of a re-opener if salaries went down. Or if it went up substantially, the other guys (NHL officials) could re-open it, maybe after two years.”

Said another union source: “It didn’t sound to me like they got anything done. The tax is still on the table. If it’s not clear to them by now that there’s not going to be a deal with a tax, I don’t know when it will be.”

Further talks are scheduled today between Burke and Pash and union attorneys John McCambridge and Bob Riley. However, no full-scale negotiations involving Bettman and Bob Goodenow, the NHLPA’s executive director, have been arranged.