- Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch: The NHLPA’s offer may be okay with some owners, but not others.
“I think as many as eight NHL owners would accept the NHLPA’s initial proposal,” said an NHL player agent who spoke to The Dispatch on the condition of anonymity. “And there’s probably four to six others who would find the proposal acceptable enough that they could tweak a couple of things and live with it.”
The NHL has threatened $1 million fines if any team speaks out during the lockout.
“If there are issues remaining with the economic picture of the NHL, they are club-specific issues,” Fehr said. “If the clubs that don’t need assistance are willing to partner with the players to help get at the issues of the clubs that may need it, we’re prepared to do that. But it’s not a circumstance where the players are going to say, ‘OK, take everything from us.’ ”
- Michael Grange of Sportsnet: Grange lists 5 easy steps to solve the NHL’s crisis. 1. Just get to a 50-50 revenue split and be done with it. 2. Contract 2 teams; move 2 others to Canada. 3. Limit player contracts to 4 years. 4. Meaningful revenue sharing, Part 1: “10 percent of league revenues will be set aside as prize money for the most fiercely fought post-season in all of sports: the Stanley Cup Playoffs” (Bob McCown also presented a similar idea). 2011-12 would have netted a $301 million pot. 5. Meaningful revenue sharing, Part 2: The top 10 highest earning teams distribute about 6% of league revenue, about $192 million, to the bottom 15 teams, providing they reach certain criteria. Team limit is capped at $10 million in regular season money, adjusted for playoffs. Along with the playoff pool, scrap the hard cap for a luxury tax system. If worried about big spenders, but a 3 for 1 tax on team salaries that are over $75 million.
- Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch: If there is a lockout, one of the first things to go could be the NHL All-Star game in Columbus. When the last lockout occurred, the All-Star game was cancelled on November 3rd.
- Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun: Scott Hannan signing with the Predators the other day was the first player of note to sign with a new team since Alexander Semin on July 26th. The CBA situation will make harder for remaining free agents to get a deal soon. Some free agents still looking for work are: Carlo Colaiacovo, Chris Campoli and Jaroslav Spacek, Jason Arnott, Dominic Moore and Kristian Huselius. Players who may have been traded include Roberto Luongo, Boby Ryan and Jay Bouwmeester.
- Josh Cooper of the Tennessean: Predators defenseman Roman Josi hasn’t been handed the Shea Weber’s partner job, but he could be a top candidate. They hooked him up with a nutritionist and told him to add some muscle.
“I’m talking the leader in the clubhouse,” coach Barry Trotz said. “You could say Roman plays a similar type of game as Ryan, and that was my thought process. He might be a good complement for Webs.”
- Michael Russo of the Star Tribune: Wild forward Dany Heatley is suing his former agent and the agent’s parents for $11 million. Heatley is saying they lured him into real-estate ventures with promises of big returns that never materialized. While he has playing in Atlanta, his agent at the time was Stacey McAlpine, is also being accused of making more than $4 million in unauthorized withdrawals.
- David Pollak of the San Jose Mercury News: Sharks owner Kevin Compton on evaluating Sharks GM Doug Wilson after last season:
“You look at two things. You look at the most recent event, which is always the playoffs, and you look at the body of work. And then you compare them. And then you say, ‘OK, how does this compare to what you told us was going to happen?’ He has plan for two or three years out . . . and how does it compare to that.
“If things are missed, the answer isn’t always just firing people. It’s going to them and saying it didn’t work out. It didn’t work out as you had envisioned or we had hoped. What do you need to do better? Do you need more resources? Do you need new tools?
“With new tools, do we think this person can execute better. If we didn’t, we’d have made a change.”