The NHL and NHL Players' Association will continue talks this weekend after meeting for a fifth straight day in New York on Friday as they continued to inch closer to a collective bargaining agreement.
A deal could be reached as soon as this weekend but more likely early next week.
The two sides have met 78 times overall - nine consecutive weeks - since commissioner Gary Bettman cancelled the 2004-05 season Feb. 16.
Bettman has summoned the NHL's executive committee to New York for an update Monday, something he has done routinely during the lockout. This time they'll probably be asked to look at the deal at hand, a six-year agreement that will look something like this depending on last-minute changes:
- Team salary cap set for next season between $37 million and $39 million US at the upper limit with a minimum of between $21 million and $24 million.
- Players salaries cannot - on a league-wide basis - take up more than 54 per cent of revenues; next season's cap is based on the projection of between $1.7 billion to $1.8 billion in revenues for next season, down from the $2.1 billion in 2003-04. In ensuing years, the cap levels will be decided by the previous year's revenues. This can cut two ways: if revenues grow in future years, the cap will move upward in the players' favour, perhaps much higher than the $42.5-million hard cap offered by the league before the season was cancelled; but if the NHL gets hammered by the fallout from the lockout, the cap could be even lower than $37 million for the 2006-07 season.
- All existing player contracts will be rolled back 24 per cent, which also includes all qualifying offers this summer for restricted free agents.
- No player can earn more than 20 per cent of his team's salary cap. Under a $37-million cap, that means no player can earn more than $7.4 million next season. Jaromir Jagr ($8.36 million), Keith Tkachuk ($7.6 million), Alexei Yashin ($7.6 million) and Nicklas Lidstrom ($7.6 million) are all above that right now, and that includes the 24 per cent rollback.
- Players will place a yet-to-be determined percentage of their salaries into escrow at the start of the season until after the year when revenues can be determined and the 54 per cent rate can be figured out; either the teams or the players will get money back, depending whether the rate is above or below 54 per cent.
- Revenue-sharing where the top 10 money-making clubs donate to a fund shared by the bottom 10 teams.
- The entry-level system will limit those players to $850,000 a year in salary (which it was 10 years ago) with bonuses not as easily reachable as the previous deal.
- The age of unrestricted free agency will remain 31 this summer but will gradually be brought down to 27 or 28 by the 2008.
- Two-way salary arbitration. Both players and owners can select to go to arbitration, whereas only players had those rights in the previous deal. This will allow owners to downgrade underperforming players.
- The ability for teams to buy players out of their contracts at two thirds of their value. This is meant to help teams fit under the cap but the clubs won't be able to re-sign those players.
- Participation in the February 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy.
Once a tentative deal is announced, both sides still need to ratify the deal. A board of governors' meeting will be called where all 30 owners will need to approve the deal. A vote of the 700-plus NHLPA membership will also be needed. All of which may take more than a week before the deal is officially ratified.