Let us imagine a new and wonderful world for a little while. In this world, is disease and famine a thing of the past? Is the presidential election over? Does a steady diet of pizza and cupcakes help you lose weight?

No on all accounts! In this fantastical world, I am running the National Hockey League Players Association after replacing Donald Fehr in the role of executive director. A coup has taken place and I have been inserted to handle the next collective bargaining agreement negotiation. Yes, I’d prefer the pizza and cupcakes thing to be real too, but I can’t build hockey content around that premise.

Here is my first memo to the players:

Dear players, Hey! It’s me, Dave! Thank you for putting your faith in me at this crucial time in the history of the NHL. There is no one better to lead you into the next CBA negotiation in 2019, because we are sure as shit opting out of the current CBA on Sept. 19, 2019. Can I curse in these memos? Who cares, right? Anyway, you guys should use this head’s up to begin squirreling away money ASAP. You should live beneath your means for the next three years, because my plan is to shut down the entire 2019-20 season because the system in place right now may be the most ridiculous in all of sports and for perhaps any labor body. We are blowing it up and starting over, so save that money and start eyeing KHL and Swedish league teams that will employ you during 2019-20. All the best, Dave

Let’s get this out of the way: Yes, anything that’s happened since the 2013 lockout occurred under a CBA to which the players agreed. So if Johnny Gaudreau and Nikita Kucherov were forced to take below-market value on their recent contracts because of this CBA, that’s just the way it is — even if neither player had an NHL contract or skin in the game then.

Any system that results in Kucherov in 2016 signing a contract for less term and money than one Ryan Callahan signed in 2014, no matter their designation under the CBA, needs to be imploded.

Before we get into service time, arbitration eligibility and offer sheets, let’s focus on what I consider to be the heart of this CBA’s problem, and that’s the ability of NHL teams to give players the double-screw when they are young and older.

A few caveats aside, a player is not eligible to become an unrestricted free agent until he is 25 years old. And most times, the good players sign contracts when they are younger that bleed into their late-20s. This practice is known as “buying UFA years,” which always come cheaper to the team at that point than they would if they were negotiating with a full-fledged UFA. For the most part, between the ages of 18 and 24, NHL teams own their players in a way that almost always prevents them from receiving fair market value for their services. This is what we call “getting screwed” or, as Gary Bettman called it during the 2004-05 lockout, “cost certainty.”

The NHL is real shifty with its language in regards to these types of practices, which we will get back to later.

In a 2014 SB Nation piece by Eric Tulsky, who now works in the front office of the Carolina Hurricanes and is smarter than all of us, he figured out that most NHL players, specifically forwards, reach their peak in terms of point production at the age of 24. He also concluded that after the age of 29, the average player’s ability to score plummets.

This places members of the NHLPA in a precarious and doubly unfair position. During the brief earning window that is an NHL career, the player is at his peak powers in his early-20s, when he has almost zero negotiating leverage and is essentially at the mercy of his front office. When that same player is free to sign wherever he is wanted, he is then faced with the guy on the other side of the table saying that he is now on the downside of his career and therefore doesn’t deserve as much money as he did when he was younger.

Are there ways for a player between the ages of 18 and 24 to get some leverage on his side? Sure, but most of it is just window dressing and if the player does use the tools at his advantage in the CBA, there can be repercussions.

Let’s assume we are starting with an 18-year-old player. Everyone signs, with a few differences in bonuses, the same three-year, entry-level deal. That player is not eligible for an offer sheet until he accrues three full years of service and can’t take his team to arbitration until after his fourth year in the NHL. But once that ELC has expired, the player becomes a restricted free agent.

That’s a great term, isn’t it? Restricted free agent. Only the NHL can create an idea that places the words “restricted” and “free” side-by-side to describe a player’s status. It’s one or the other, my friends — either you are restricted or you are free. Of course, RFAs are more restricted than free when you consider all his potential options.

If, as a very talented player who has not reached UFA status, you dare take your team to arbitration in order to attain a fair salary, you can almost definitely kiss your team goodbye. Just ask Ryan Johansen and P.K. Subban, who now have new homes after contentious negotiations that either led to arbitration or the specter of it.

Admittedly, as the new executive director of the NHLPA, I don’t have the solution that prevents teams from being dicks when players use their rights. But maybe I’ll solve that when I become commissioner.

How about offer sheets? Ha, you crazy, silly person, you! In any sane world where every team is trying to win, Kucherov would have had teams kicking down his door with offer sheets. Yes, the threat of an offer sheet helped Brandon Saad and Dougie Hamilton receive contracts commensurate to their abilities but the CBA should just replace “offer sheet” with “unicorn” in their wording because a player is just as likely to see either after he’s played three NHL seasons.

Even if Kucherov was hell-bent on escaping Tampa — and nothing says he was — the salary cap prevents many players from moving to new teams. At the very least, he deserved a contract close to Gaudreau’s, but how many teams have the room to add a $6.5 million-ish player in mid-July or August?

(This is the part where I’d write 500 impassioned words about why a salary cap is the worst thing in sports and how in a system this gamed against young players that peak before UFA years, it’s especially bad — especially when you’re counting on the NHL to be honest about revenue, but we should probably wrap this up soon.)

Shifting back to language, it really bugs me that media folks parrot the nonsense term general managers have invented for justifying the screwing of players: bridge deal. The only way what Subban or Kucherov signed can be considered “bridge deals” is if you’re mocking them by referring to George C. Parker, the scam artist who “sold” the Brooklyn Bridge to numerous people.

In special cases, you can maybe — maybe — think of a short-term deal for a young player that had one good season as a bridge deal to a bigger deal in two years. But in the case of Kucherov and others like him, referring to it as a bridge deal and not a predetermined amount that was decided months in advance by management is dishonest and normalizes a borderline corrupt practice.

In a fair, open market, Hampus Lindholm should be paid about $6.5 million per season, maybe more, for eight years. In the market created by this CBA, the threat of an offer sheet should have created the pressure on the Ducks to make that happen months ago. But offer sheets aren’t real. The Ducks have about $4 million in space available to sign Lindholm and fellow RFA Rickard Rakell and no one is stepping up because the only thing GMs love more than winning is other GMs.

Instead, Lindholm is at the mercy of a team that mismanaged its cap so badly that he must either take an incredibly unfair contract or not play at all. He’s arguably a top-10 defenseman with zero negotiating power.

What is my biggest obstacle during my 2019-20 strike season? It’s probably not owners — it’s veteran players who understand if more money goes to the younger guys, that’s less for them. Why would Troy Brouwer want to change a system that gives him a better deal than Kucherov? There’s also the NHL culture that believes in paying dues and all that, and those who have already paid those dues won’t be keen on the idea of 22-year-olds avoiding said dues.

But believe in me, NHL players. With my brilliant ideas and savvy negotiating ploys, there will be a true open market that gives you, the reason fans watch this sport, more flexibility and earning ability during the prime of your career. Free agency after you’re done with your ELC. No salary cap. More reasonable compensation for signing offer sheets.

I am the man to lead you into the next decade.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to decide which underwear I can re-wear to the gym and then microwave a Hot Pocket.