• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

2018-2019 NHL Thread – Thunderstorm Warning

Don't know, not a lot of specifics just yet, I just assumed they were saying make part of their contract like bonus money? I'm sure we'll get more information in the next day or so.

BTW, I can't get over that third offer. It seems like they basically offered what the NHL told the public it offered the other day. That's amazing. And Bettman stormed out and left.

Granted, Bettman claimed that no offer guaranteed they'd get to 50/50. So I guess we need to wait for more details.

NHL lockout 2012: Donald Fehr explains three NHLPA offers
 
Last edited:
What does this part mean exactly?
I think it has to do with not being able to cover contracts signed at a 57/43 split if they go immediately to 50/50. The 13% covers the difference between a 57% and 50% split in HRR.
 
The players seemed to by trying to actually negotiate, and the NHL seems to be in "take it or leave it" mode. I hate Gary Bettman so damned much.
 
I don't really have any details, but I have been hearing that the NHL's most recent offer was publicized as 50/50 while the remaining shitty portions of the deal were kept under wraps so that the NHLPA would look bad for rejecting.
 
I think it has to do with not being able to cover contracts signed at a 57/43 split if they go immediately to 50/50. The 13% covers the difference between a 57% and 50% split in HRR.

^^ This guy always seems to know what's up.

I don't really have any details, but I have been hearing that the NHL's most recent offer was publicized as 50/50 while the remaining shitty portions of the deal were kept under wraps so that the NHLPA would look bad for rejecting.

All the details confuse me, but it seems like the NHL claimed they offered a 50/50 split and that they'd honor the contracts already signed, but the way they were planning to pay the players for their current contracts was kind of BS. So it sounds like the players' third option may be a reaction to that, and also a proposal where they can claim to offer a 50/50 split with the current contracts honored, but the way to get to 50/50 is kind of BS. PR battles for all!

At least both sides have basically admitted that the end game will be a 50/50 split. The problem will be how to get there. The players may be the ones willing to negotiate, but the owners have the leverage and are stubborn as hell.
 
The NHLPA's third proposal takes the 13% player pay cut necessary to get the share from 57% to 50% and removes it from any share or cap calculations. The owners will be on the hook to honor that 13% and any new contracts signed going forward will be 50/50.

The NHL's make whole provision covers the expected contract dollar shortfalls in year 1 and 2 of the new CBA (by year 3 the projected growth should be sufficient to cover existing contracts) through deferred compensation. The player reimbursement is paid out over the remaining life of the contracts or in the year after they expire and will be chargeable against player share amounts in those future years.

That's how I understand the two 50/50 proposals.
 
If the players' proposal is really that simple, then I hope Bettman's actions yesterday were just posturing. Otherwise he and every one of the owners need to be sat down in a line and slapped across the face. Twice. Three times for Leipold, who has the nerve to sit in the room and balk at the idea that he'd actually have to pay the full $200MM that he offered to players all of four months ago.

Not that I'm angry or anything.
 
If the players' proposal is really that simple, then I hope Bettman's actions yesterday were just posturing. Otherwise he and every one of the owners need to be sat down in a line and slapped across the face. Twice. Three times for Leipold, who has the nerve to sit in the room and balk at the idea that he'd actually have to pay the full $200MM that he offered to players all of four months ago.

Not that I'm angry or anything.

This. It is absurd to me how the owners have positioned themselves. They scrambled in the months leading up to this lockout to drop millions on long term deals for star players, and now don't want to honor it?
 
I love the way James Mirtle simplifies the numbers:

Analysis: Why the NHL players’ 50-50 compromise may not matter

By his numbers, it looks like the difference between the owners offer and the players offers is around $480MM-$500MM spread over four years. Using rough, back of the envelope math ($3B annual revenues, 50% split) the owners would lose that much in one year if they cancelled even a third of the season. That makes me at least somewhat hopeful that the owners won't shut down negotiations, and if they do, that's some serious hubris.

He also notes that the players aren't helping the situation by refusing to discuss the issues other than the revenue split.

Elliotte Friedman is optimistic:

NHL labour solution could come from auto industry

Soon, we're going to get through the phony posturing, the silly public-relations exercises. Meetings will happen without us knowing, they won't end in less time than it takes me to eat a tasty Peanut Buster Parfait and there won't be 850 people attending them.

Everyone's annoyed tonight. It doesn't look good, but we are gaining momentum. There are more proposals being exchanged, more meetings between the two sides. We know the cornerstone issues for the players and the owners.
 
I refuse to believe this lockout will go on into December. Both sides (especially Bettman) are doing whatever dance in public they think is necessary to get the other side to inch closer to their proposal, but they are so close. The owners are mostly businessmen, and I don't think they'd give up actual dollars just to win an argument. I mean, look at the players latest offers... if revenue grows at the same level it has in recent years, the players' share will be cut below 51% by year 3 in either of the first two offers.

I thought this was interesting:

How a “make-whole” salary cap would provide a win-win lockout solution

NHL LOCKOUT: BREAKING DOWN A NEW CBA PROPOSAL

Basically, it just says that the leeway that the NHL is willing to give teams to exceed the cap by up to what the cap would have been under the old agreement should stay in place until the actual cap catches up to it. Any payments between the actual cap and what he calls the "make whole cap" would not count towards the players share of HRR. So the only teams that would pay above the cap would be the ones that voluntarily choose to do so, and the teams the NHL says it is trying to protect would be operating under the lowered cap floor.
 
Last edited:
Saw a tweet from Pierre Lebrun today saying he was told by an exec the owners believe that if a deal doesn't get done this week, they'll axe the entire season. It seems they're finished even trying and their proposal is a take it or leave it one.
 
Saw a tweet from Pierre Lebrun today saying he was told by an exec the owners believe that if a deal doesn't get done this week, they'll axe the entire season. It seems they're finished even trying and their proposal is a take it or leave it one.

I think this is what the owners want the players to think. Then the players will have to make a choice whether to take the NHL's bad offer or lose the entire season, and they might feel enough pressure to over-rule Fehr. Which makes it somewhat interesting that this was leaked by an anonymous exec to a reporter that is likely followed by almost every player that is on Twitter.

Seems like fear mongering to me.

Edit: though the NHL has shown zero interest in good faith negotiations to date, so who knows.
 
I was thinking along the same lines, avalon.

I think we're going to get hockey this season, but I'm not hopeful it will be 82 games at this rate.
 
I hope so! If we're right, there's no way we get an 82 game season, since the owners have to wait out their made up deadline. The date that makes me nervous is Nov 20th, which is supposedly the date where they have to make a decision on the Winter Classic. If there's no Winter Classic, then I will lose all remaining optimism.

(Link for where I got the Nov 20th date.)
 
Your scenario makes sense...but I don't for one second put it past the NHL owners to kill an entire season. They had to do it once to get what they want, so I wouldn't doubt they would do it again to get what they want.
 
So your post made me think, Deadbolt... I mean, I feel exactly the same way. And I bet a lot of players do too. But the owners probably know that. How much of them being so difficult is them using that as a negotiating tactic? They need the players to feel like this is the last resort to save a season.

I find it hard to believe that the players would hire Fehr and then would just give in at the first sign of pressure from the owners, however.

So I guess we'll see what happens after this week. There's so much more to lose this time around with the way revenues have grown, and with the Winter Classic, I'd like to think the owners wouldn't be so quick to shut down the season. But they are a bunch of spiteful, evil old men, so I wouldn't put it past them either.
 
So your post made me think, Deadbolt... I mean, I feel exactly the same way. And I bet a lot of players do too. But the owners probably know that. How much of them being so difficult is them using that as a negotiating tactic? They need the players to feel like this is the last resort to save a season.

I find it hard to believe that the players would hire Fehr and then would just give in at the first sign of pressure from the owners, however.

So I guess we'll see what happens after this week. There's so much more to lose this time around with the way revenues have grown, and with the Winter Classic, I'd like to think the owners wouldn't be so quick to shut down the season. But they are a bunch of spiteful, evil old men, so I wouldn't put it past them either.

We're going to find out one way or another since since the owners are saying October 25th is the deadline they're imposing to get a deal done. After that, I'm thinking the league kills everything through the rest of the year. That I feel certain they would do without batting an eye, so the pressure is really on the players these next few days.
 
The narrowing financial gap between the NHL and the NHLPA

I mean, seriously, what nonsense that Bettman called the latest offers a step back:

Picture-5.png


The first bunch is the difference between the NHL's second offer (since the first was lunacy) and the players' second offer (which was basically just a re-work of their first); the second between the players' second offer and the NHL's most recent, and the third and fourth between the players' most recent two offers and the NHL's latest.

In any event, we’re talking about an awfully small difference on the team level. Both sides appear to have moved considerably with the offers that have been exchanged. As I said yesterday, albeit without laying out the numbers explicitly, it’s hard to make much sense of Bettman’s dour mien after Thursday. Unless, just maybe, it might have been a bit of theatre, intended for the benefit of the NHLPA membership from whom he’d like to squeeze more concessions.
 
Back
Top