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With Don Fehr's guantlet in the sand approach to the proposed NHL realignment, I think the upcoming CBA negotiations might get interesting. I've seen some outlandish stuff like a recent THN article by Ken Campbell where he expects the owners to look for another ~25% salary rollback (which would bring the players' take down to 42.75% of leaguewide revenues - after doing the math Ken, you still think they're going to ask for that?). Both items got me curious as to what each side will likely be looking for in the upcoming negotiations. Some items that would / should be of importance to each side are items such as: %age of revenues that go to the players; what monies are considered 'revenues;' hard cap / soft cap; per team salary range; tradeability of cap space; what monies paid to players count towards their %age of revenues; how to account for player retirement against the cap; escrow; guaranteed money; arbitration; rookie wage scale; free agency; pensions; roster size; revenue sharing; season length; Olympics / World Cup / international games; usage of player images / team logos & unis; morals clauses (including drug testing); game playing rules; discipline; I'm sure I'm missing a few others. I'd expect to see the players' share of the pie which is currently at 57% to stay fairly constant. I'd be surprised if it goes up any and would also be surprised to see it end up below 54%. I'd be shocked if it's less than 52%. I'd expect to see some minor tweaks to what is included as 'hockey related revenue' but haven't looked closely at the list recently to guess as to what tweaks would be made. The players will definitely push for a soft cap and some like Brian Burke are on record as wanting to be able to trade cap space. I am definitely on the side of keeping a hard cap and keeping cap space specific to each team with no ability to trade it. This helps to maintain a competitive balance in the league. The big spenders can already outspend their weaker sisters in the front office and in amenities, and they've also figured out how to put serious money up front into contracts and then have the $'s fall over the length of the contract. If they can also 'free up cap space' by buying some from somebody else for a player or pick, then there really would be no point to a cap and they might as well install a farcical system like MLB's 'luxury tax.' I'd expect to see revisions to how much a contract can vary over the life of the contract and I'd expect to see the 20% of cap individual salary cap to remain in place. I'd expect that player retirement will no longer wipe out the player's future cap hit, at least in the case of non-injury related retirements. I could see them getting treated like ordinary course buyouts for salary cap matters (any variance of cap and actual $'s up to the point of the retirement then get stepped back out with either dead cap or excess cap space depending on whether it was a front loaded or back loaded deal). As long as there is a hard cap in place, it is actually in the interest of the majority of players to have the cap $'s matching the actual $'s, because when teams like the Sabres give out $10MM on a $4.5MM contract that's an extra $5.5MM in player salary that counts towards their 57%. I doubt the players will see it that way though and it will be interesting to see how the Kovy rules get amended. I expect the players will push for wider bands around that average salary for each team (currently +/- $8MM for each team). Not sure which way they'll push for wider bands. If they're pushed wider by letting teams be further under the 57% salary, then they'll likely get more money at the end of the year as the escrow accounting will go further in their favor; if they push the other way, the nominal average salary will be higher, but they'll have to lose some of their escrow money at the end of the year. I'd expect players will push for all guaranteed money to be at least 2/3's and probably shoot for 3/4's. It's something the league could give in on and not really effect actual $'s out as long as they still end up with a hard cap. They'll also push for expanded ability to get 1 way deals. I doubt that will happen. Nobody's happy with the way arbitration works now, so I don't expect to see much change there. Maybe we'll see a change in comparables to be those contracts that were in place on the date the player filed for arbitration; if that occurs, I'd expect to see a reduction in the ability of clubs to walk away from an arbitrator's decision. I don't exect much change in the rookie wage scale. I'd expect free agency to start a year earlier, but perhaps with a 'franchise' tag on a 1 year deal for a player or 2 on a roster. Any changes to the pension formula would probably be roughly offset by the %age players get. Don't know enough about the current pension system to predict changes to it. Roster size. I don't expect any changes to that. Though there will likely be revisions to waivers and re-entry waivers. Revenue sharing will be an interesting one to look at. The big market boys like the Strangers and Phlyers will push for more autonomy on their own websites. I hope the small market teams and players don't let them get away with it. I honestly would prefer to see even greater revenue sharing amongst teams. A more level playing field is a good thing IMHO. It'll be interesting to see if the players push for a shortened season. If the owners push for a reduced revenue %age to the players, that would likely be their 1st response (well, 2nd response, the 1st will be ###### you). The last few items on the list I'd expect to see posturing both ways, but not much movement and things will stay similar to the way they are now. All in all, I think this current deal has been good to both sides. Though there are some needed modifications (primarily to address details of the cap that weren't anticipated in the 1st deal) and both have some desired modifications, I hope they realize how lucky they got this last time. It really is a shame that Kelly was such a ###### pinhead regarding the player e-mails. He seemed to have their best interest in mind (IMHO) and wanted to have a partnership struck with the league but his fear of the hardliners in the union got the better of him - he ###### up royally. Someone with a view of management between that of Eagleson and Goodenow would have been a good thing (again IMHO); Fehr is far more of a Goodenow.