Fight for salary leverage in return to play negotiations

In a crucial week for the NHL Players' Association and league owners to reach amended financial ground for the 2020-21 season, who has the leverage?

Players want to play and owners want to ensure they have the bigger piece of a hockey-related revenue pie. However, larger salary deferrals and escrow demands to recoup US$300 million next season have left the NHLPA as agitated as season-ticket holders.

Patrons wonder when and if they'll watch the Vancouver Canucks host all-canadian division games in a Major League Baseball style series of two games in a three-day period. Players wonder what happened to their agreement for the coming season

“The players have the leverage because at the end of the day, Gary Bettman has to preserve the integrity of the game and they have to play a season — whatever it looks like,” an NHL agent said Sunday. “Because if they don't, it's really going to damage the brand.

“The owners need to start acting like owners. Stop using the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) or the MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) as a promissory note because they now want to rewrite terms of the note. They assume the business risk by owning teams. Part of the rift is what happens when you run a business, you have to deal with it and act like an owner.”

A promissory note is a signed document containing a written promise to pay a stated sum to a specified person or the bearer at a specified date or on demand.

In a normal business climate, that description makes sense for players and owners. However, amid a strong second wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic that has crippled economies and created fear, fatigue and frustration, everybody knows COVID-19 is king. I

In the interim, owners are suggesting salary deferrals and escrow options to the NHLPA and they have not gone over well — especially with a four-year CBA extension reached in July. Knowing what awaits with financial uncertainly, the NHLPA agreed to a 20 per cent escrow and 10 per cent salary deferral for next season.

Owners then pitched increasing escrow to 25 per cent and deferral to 20. Then it became retaining escrow at 20 per cent in 2020-21 and increasing deferral to 26 per cent. The kicker was escrow would be reduced to 8.5 to nine per cent in subsequent seasons. But escrow is a slippery slope for the NHLPA because that money isn't guaranteed in economic uncertainty.

“If it was a just a clear deferral, I think players individually would look at that, if they had the flexibility,” added the agent. “But players are in different situations. If a guy is on a long-term deal, would it make sense for him to defer some money this year? That's a voluntary decision and it might be able to work, but the players and league have to agree on it.

“And part of the problem with deferred income is that in the U.S., it's not guaranteed. So, if an owner wants to declare bankruptcy, the first thing a court is going to throw away is unsecured debt. And if you secure it, you add tax to that particular year.”

Regardless, the clock is ticking to determine whether a 60-game season will commence with or without fans on Jan. 1, Jan. 15 or Feb. 1.