I have talked to enough sources on both sides about the legal filings of the NHL and NHLPA to have an informed opinion about what comes next. I now believe, more than ever, there will be a settlement soon and an NHL season will finally begin.
A week ago, I wrote about how the week to come would get ugly in the public arena. I believe I may have been on point with that one.
The NHL has already won the essential issues of this CBA battle and they know it. What's more, the NHLPA knows it as well.
Separated from everything else, the NHL's only GENUINELY make-or-break issue from day one was a 50-50 revenue split. Everything else was negotiable to varying degrees.
The current legal wrangling is nothing more than each side making sure the other side has as painful of a victory and loss as possible.
The NHL may have a hard time finding too many owners that are willing to die on the contracting issues. When everything is done, they will yield some additional ground on contract lengths but probably gain ground on the union's last variance-related position. But neither side is TRULY that committed to either of these issues to lose a full season over it. They are still just posturing, hoping the other side caves first on the ancillary issues.
In fact, I have talked to more NHL owners who don't care about contract length maximums as than to ones who support the idea of holding onto the issue until the bitter end.
Savvy business people do not blow up their companies and walk away from money over issues they do not consider indispensable to the successful operation of their business.
For the players, once they get some concessions on the remaining issues, they will celebrate. Privately, though, some realize the owners' deal should have been accepted last week.
Donald Fehr somehow, and this is still the remarkable story of the lockout to me, got the players to give up money owed to them in December in order to win issues that only help a very few of them in a very few hypothetical situations. So "HOORAY!", guys. I think you'll "win" on those at a cost of more than you actually gained. Were it me, though, I would take a paycheck now over a possible trickle down later on.
There has been plenty of talk over the NHL wanting to take a vote to accept the NHLPA's last offer. I am thinking we will sooner see a vote where the NHL owners essentially sit down and vote over the NHLPA's last offer.
It will go something like this...
"Gentlemen, pick one...
1. Accept eight-year contract limits, an eight-year CBA and close to a billon dollars of revenue this year, even with the loss of nearly half a season.... or....
2. Risk dying on the hill of trying to grind the other side down to accept five-year contract limits and a 10-year CBA, and collect zero revenues. On top of that, risk alienating existing sponsors to the point of no retrieval, and enraging our television partners in the U.S. and Canada who invested a boatload of money in our product."
Yeah, these guys on the Board of Governors want to crush Donald Fehr. But I would wager on the odds that no more than 5 of these incredibly successful people on the Board of Governors would pick option "B".
There is also a HUGE risk-management factor here, and don't believe any extremists who tell you otherwise. The courts are a gamble. The owners could win in court -- at an astronomically high cost of money and time -- or they could also lose huge in every possible way. There is also the worry of making Fehr more powerful and prolonging his involvement in hockey.
More than a few people who know Donald Fehr well tell me the quicker the CBA negotiations are over the quicker he is out of the picture. Fehr is said to very much want to retire, possibly after grooming a successor (Steve Fehr? Someone else?) or possibly just quietly stepping away if he feels he's made the best possible deal he could make for his constituency under the circumstances.
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