NHL talks on contract issues break up quickly

Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Sports | USATODAY

Hope for the NHL starting around Dec. 1 suffered a major blow Sunday when negotiations in New York between owners and players on individual contract issues bogged down after 75 to 90 minutes.

NHL Players Association executive director Donald Fehr said because the NHL won't budge on contract issues, he doesn't "see a path to an agreement."

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said owners have made movement, and progress, on 14 of the 17 player contract issues that players are concerned about. However, he also said no progress was made on Sunday.

Among owners' demands is changing unrestricted free agency to age 28 or eight seasons in the NHL (up from 27 or seven), plus a five-year cap on the length of an player contract and reduction of a player's arbitration rights.

One of the owners' objectives is to close off the loopholes that teams used to artificially lower the salary cap hit for star players. They would sign players to long-term contracts with low salaries at the end to bring down the average salary. The league viewed it as legalized cap circumvention and wants that practice ended.

"These are not issues we can walk away from," Daly said.

Daly said the league is seeking the changes because teams have requested them. "We think the system will operate better," he said.

Fehr said the changes offer players "vastly fewer rights, vastly less leverage for a vastly longer portion of their career."

It wasn't clear when the two sides would meet again, but neither would rule out meeting Tuesday in Toronto. Every will be in Toronto on Monday for the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies for Adam Oates, Pavel Bure, Joe Sakic and Mats Sundin.

The league has technically already canceled the first seven weeks of the NHL season, but it would probably still be possible to play 68 to 70 games if the season could start before Dec. 1. To accomplished that, the two sides would probably need to reach an agreement this week. The expectation is that it would take three days to round up players, some of whom are playing in Europe, and then teams will want a seven-day training camp.

However, the lack of progress on Sunday makes that schedule seem overly ambitious. Besides the disagreement on player contract rights, the two sides haven't yet agreed on the major economic issue of how to divide revenue. Owners want to drop the split of hockey-related revenue from 57% to 50%, while offering protection of existing contracts, but players don't believe the league's make-whole proposal goes far enough.

"It does leave us in a difficult place," Daly said.

On the revenue-split issue, players say they want to negotiate a deal based on a full season, and then determine how it will be pro-rated for a shortened season. Owners want that pro-rated figure for players negotiated as part of the overall picture.

It's a significant issue because a shortened season means less revenue to be divided. It's difficult to know exactly what will happen because it's impossible to know all of the factors, such as fan backlash. But it is presumed the NHL would suffer a minimum of a $350 million loss of revenue in a 70-game season, and they would have to prepare as if it could be higher.

The players proposed that they receive $1.883 billion, the same amount they earned last season, plus a 1.75% increase, compounded over the length of the agreement. If the revenues were down $400 million, that number would be about a 65% share of revenue.