NHL Has a Hunch Union Will Bend

Unyielding in its pursuit of a salary cap, the NHL is betting players will crumble during the rapidly closing window of time remaining to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement and save the 2004-05 season.

After a four-hour meeting in Manhattan on Friday hit the same dead end as Thursday’s nine-hour session, a source familiar with the talks said the NHL believes the union is splintering. That’s based on St. Louis Blues defenseman Barret Jackman and Chicago Blackhawk goalie Jocelyn Thibault’s joining Flyer forward Jeremy Roenick in saying they’d accept a salary cap if it’s not punitive and would “save this game,” as Jackman told a Vancouver radio station.

Hoping that chorus will swell as the lockout nears the five-month mark and players will pressure Executive Director Bob Goodenow to make a deal that includes a cap, the NHL will wait until Feb. 14 or 15 before canceling the season.

However, the source said the NHL is miscalculating.

“Those comments are being misconstrued as support for the league’s offer of [three] days ago,” the source said. “I think what they’re saying is they could envision agreeing to play under a cap of some form but not as it is now.”

The league’s refusal to set a deadline for canceling the season is largely legal strategy. Should it try to declare an impasse and impose labor conditions -- and sign replacement players -- it will have to prove it bargained in good faith. Setting a deadline could be seen as contradicting that.

At least one more negotiation will take place, the source said, though he saw the likelihood of an agreement as slim. Goodenow told Canada’s TSN on Friday that the parties “agreed to stay in touch but there’s really no progress to report of any type. That’s the reality.”

The union reintroduced a proposal it had made Dec. 9 but this time guaranteed clubs would save about $1 billion over six years and promised player costs would rise no more than 6.5% from one season to the next.

“[Goodenow] told them, ‘This will do exactly what you guys say you need, and if it doesn’t do what we say it will do over three years, we will go to your system,’ ” a source said. “But the league wasn’t interested.”

The proposal centered on a 24% salary rollback, a luxury tax that would start at 20% and hit 60% for clubs that repeatedly exceeded a $45-million threshold, limiting entry-level salaries and bonuses, and capping qualifying offers at 105%. The union said owners would save $528 million in salaries over the first three years, $285 million in entry-level salaries over six years and $285 million on qualifying offers.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said in December the salary rollback was a “one-time element” and that other components wouldn’t produce the cost certainty the league needs to stem losses that reached $497 million the last two seasons. He has said linking salaries to revenues will make player costs manageable for owners.

The NHL’s last offer, made on Wednesday, contained a team salary range of $32 million to $42 million, including player benefits, and linked salaries to 53% and 55% of revenues. Players oppose linkage because they don’t trust owners’ revenue-reporting methods.

Bill Daly, the NHL’s chief legal officer, said in a statement the league would not comment on the negotiations or the status of the season “at this time.” He added, “We had extensive and constructive talks over the past two days. While there are no future meetings scheduled, we have agreed to keep the lines of communication open.”

Ron Salcer, an agent whose players include Rob Blake and Ed Belfour, said he’d been told the union “is trying to walk through the proposal line by line by line and show [owners] how they could control their spending and that it is a model they could work off, but the NHL isn’t budging.”

He added, “It’s unfortunate. You would hope they’d have a meeting of the minds. This isn’t a good time to do anything like this. You would have hoped something could have been initiated with these talks.”

Although Roenick said on Thursday he’d like players to vote if the NHL makes a better proposal, with a higher salary-cap threshold, a union spokesman said players had empowered their executive council to negotiate on their behalf and will vote only if the council recommends a proposal. It hasn’t recommended one yet.

“If there is a good enough offer I think it should [go to a full vote], but right now it isn’t a good enough offer to place a vote on,” Detroit Red Wing defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom told Associated Press. “I trust our committee, the players involved and the guys that are negotiating for us.”

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Balancing Acts

Examining the positions of the NHL and the players’ union on a salary cap in their last formal proposals:

OWNERS’ OFFER

* Salary cap: The new system would ensure that league-wide player compensation in any year will not be under 53% of the league’s revenues or exceed 55%. If teams spend less than 53% of the NHL’s revenues, they will be required to contribute additional dollars to a pool to be distributed to the players. The new range was established by averaging total team payrolls, reflecting the NHL’s acceptance of the union’s offer to roll back all existing contracts by 24%. Each team would be required to spend at least $29.8 million in player salaries ($32 million including benefits) and no more than $40 million in salaries ($42.2 million including benefits)

PLAYERS’ OFFER

* Compensation rollback: An overall market deflator that resets player compensation at a sharply reduced level by rolling back all player compensation by 24% through the life of existing contracts. The rollback in compensation over three years will be $528 million. In addition to the immediate impact, the deflator will have major ongoing effects on new contracts. A new set of system deflators will reduce spending on the individual contracts executed in the new, rolled-back marketplace.

Sources: NHL, NHLPA and Associated Press