Owners take a step back in latest offers

NEW YORK -- When the NHL canceled the season, the league warned players that future offers wouldn't be as good as those that were rejected.

There was proof of that Thursday.

During a 2 1/2-hour bargaining session in New York, the NHL gave the players' association two six-year proposals: one with a tie between league revenues and player costs and one without. So far, the union isn't interested in either.

A source close to the negotiations told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the "de-linked" offer contained a hard cap of $37.5 million per team, $5 million less than commissioner Gary Bettman's final, nonnegotiable proposal made on Feb. 15 -- the night before he called off the season.

Back then, the players responded with a soft-cap offer of $49 million. So as far apart as the sides were then, the gap appeared even wider Thursday.

The NHL, however, did make some concessions. The new offer included a minimum payroll number of $22.5 and provided a mechanism to negotiate the cap upward if there was certain revenue success, the source said.

The removal of linkage was what got the players to agree for the first time to accept a salary cap. But a deal was never close to being reached, and a mid-ground number was never offered by either side.

Once the season was wiped out, both sides said all offers were off the table. But the NHL reinstated a proposal without linkage, and gave it a short shelf life.

"De-linked means we're taking some financial risk and exposure," NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly told the AP. "As more damage is done and it becomes more unpredictable as to what our revenues will be, our willingness to entertain and accept that exposure and risk becomes less and less."

There is no question that the league would like to have a collective bargaining agreement with linkage to ensure "cost certainty" for its 30 clubs. That was the basis of the second offer Thursday in which players would be guaranteed 54 percent of league revenues, the source said.

The offers also dealt with issues such as the entry-level system, qualifying offers, salary arbitration, and free agency.

"Last week, Gary asked me how to resume discussions for a new CBA," NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow said. "I told Gary to bring forward any proposal that he believed would be of interest to the players. Today, Gary gave us two salary-cap proposals. Both proposals were very similar to ones that we previously rejected several times.

"We will be determining our next steps and responding at the appropriate time."

Only 20 minutes of Thursday's meeting was spent together, the time it took the NHL to lay out its proposals. The players' association spent the rest of the session in caucus, Daly said.

"They told us they were planning some internal meetings next week and would get back to us next week," Daly said. "I don't read too much into their public comments. I would imagine at the appropriate time they will give us an appropriate response.

"Hopefully, it will be a basis to try to move forward and reach a deal."

The union wasn't looking to return to the bargaining table so quickly after the cancellation of the season and said it saw nothing positive in firing proposals back and forth.

The NHL has its sights set on getting a deal done soon, in time to hold the draft on schedule in June and relaunch the league with fresh new rules aimed at opening up the game and generating more fan excitement.

"We told them if they wanted to pursue negotiations of a de-linked salary cap, then we would need to do that pretty quickly and reach an agreement in the next several weeks," Daly said.

The NHL already lagged in popularity among the four major North American sports before becoming the first of the leagues to lose an entire season to a labor dispute.

The draft can't be held without an agreement with the players' association. If talks continue to fail, the NHL might seek to have a labor impasse declared. If successful, the league could try to implement its own system and open training camps in the fall with replacement players.

That will be a topic again when the league's board of governors meets April 20. That plan was one of several up for discussion when the board convened March 1 in New York.

"We had provided each of the clubs with workbooks where we asked them to give us a lot of different information -- projections, scenarios," Daly said. "We expect to receive that information back from the clubs by the end of this month and we'll process that.

"Then we'll be in a better position to discuss business alternatives come April 20."

Last Friday, the league and players' association met in Toronto, but only for 90 minutes. That meeting wasn't really meant for specific bargaining purposes, but more to set the tone for upcoming discussions.

This was the third trip to the bargaining table for the league and the union since the season was canceled. The sides got together three days later, without Bettman and Goodenow, in an attempt to end the cancellation. But those efforts -- highlighted by input from Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux -- turned out to be futile.

Bettman and Goodenow were present for the past two negotiating sessions.