NHLPA presents their case to the owners

The owners of the National Hockey League made their proposal to the players back on July 13, 2012 and a month and a day later the NHLPA  presented it's level headed and grounded case to the NHL owners. The NHL owners have now said that they are now going to need some time to study the proposal from the NHLPA.

Bettman says "we need time to evaluate" players' proposal. They meet again tomorrow morning after league studies it.

This is what the head of the NHLPA Donald Fehr had to say on their counter proposal according to the Canadian Press and it doesn't look like the NHLPA has put forth a controversial proposal  - it looks pretty grounded to me.

Chris Johnston, The Canadian Press --- "We do believe that the proposal the players made today, once implemented, can produce a stable industry ... that can give us a chance to move beyond the recurring labour strife that has plagued the NHL the last two decades," said Fehr.

By the union's calculations, the deal could see players give up as much as US$465 million in revenue if the league continues to grow at an average rate for the next three seasons.

The proposal includes delinking the salary cap from hockey-related revenue and setting a fixed rate -- increasing by two per cent for the first year, four per cent for the second and six per cent for the third. That would see the salary cap grow to US$78.93 million for the 2014-15 season.

Michael Russo of the Star and Tribune also has a good break down of what the NHLPA's proposal on his blog and you can see that the NHLPA  is trying to focus on revenue sharing. Also, the NHLPA isn't trying to blow up the salary cap and from everything that I have read this afternoon, the hard cap stays in place as well.  Lastly, the message that I am getting from everything that I have read this afternoon, it appears that the NHL Players want to be a partner with the owners and have made some concessions to help the clubs that aren't doing as well as the bigger well off NHL teams.

Michael Russo, Star and Tribune --- The NHLPA also calls for expanded revenue sharing of what Fehr said would be up to $250 million a season. The league proposed $190 million, I’m told by sources, which is up from $170 million in the previous CBA. In the player proposal, I’m told the figure listed is actually $240 million (not 250, like Fehr said in his presser). Whatever: $240 million or $250 million is relatively not a long ways off from $190 million, so that’s pretty negotiable.

The other area where I think the NHL will want to negotiate with the union is in the contractual system. The NHL proposed no salary arbitration, increasing the years of service to become an unrestricted free agent from seven years to 10, raising entry-level contracts from three years to five and going to maximum five-year contracts. The NHLPA proposal offered no modifications, Fehr said. You know the NHL will want to delve into that.

Also, the NHLPA CBA proposal is for three years. The fourth year of the CBA is a player option to revert back to the current, expiring CBA. Zero chance the owners ever agree to that.

It will be interesting to see where this proposal goes - much like the owners proposal it's the first step in the negotiation process.