Owners' proposal now includes salary cap rollback

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Less than 48 hours ago, five initial proposals from NHL owners concerning CBA negotiations were released by RDS' Renaud Lavoie. And each point was, to say the least, a bit worrisome.

The owners' requests were rather drastic and make a lockout appear more realistic than we'd like to imagine.

But Sunday morning, additional information was shared by Larry Brooks of the New York Post, and unfortunately it doesn't show any new signs of hope for an easy future between the players and owners.

Brooks reported the proposal would include an enormous roll back of the salary cap. Needless to say, he didn't hold his feelings back concerning the matter:

"The NHL's Declaration of War presented to the Players' Association in the guise of a first proposal on Friday would roll back the salary cap to approximately 52.5 million for 2012-13. The drop of nearly 10 million from last season would represent the lowest number since 2007-2008, sources with knowledge of the league's scheme have told Slap Shots.

"The NHL wants to roll the clock back to the 1960s, when its athletes were powerless and utterly without leverage. A proposed five-year Entry Level system followed by five years without the right to salary arbitration before free agency after 10 accrued NHL seasons would leave every player in the league at the mercy of his team for a decade in a hard cap league.

"That means that a minimum of 130 million in guaranteed contracts would somehow have to be shed by 19 teams that are currently over the league's proposed cap.

When Donald Fehr first addressed the media at the NHLPA meetings held in Chicago, he said he believed a roll back of the salary cap wouldn't be part of the negotiations, considering the players, for the most part, consented to the league in the previous lockout. But Brooks' report shows that owners are apparently looking to make up for what they didn't do in the previous round of negotiations back in 2004.

Again, these are initial offerings and of course, they're going to be substantially higher than what can realistically be expected to see in the long run. But if owners are proposing changes greater than what was initially anticipated, the league could have a very long road ahead of them.

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