League softens stands, calls for season to start Jan. 19

TORONTO – The NHL is making a serious bid to save the season.

The league softened its demands in key areas of collective bargaining with a new proposal to the NHL Players’ Association on Thursday night. The comprehensive offer included compliance buyouts and less restrictive rules on player contracts, according to sources.

The league’s proposal calls for a six-year term limit on free-agent deals — up from five previously — and will allow teams to re-sign their own players for up to seven years. It also includes a provision that salary can vary by 10 per cent from year to year during the course of a deal (the NHL’s most recent offer proposed a five-per-cent variance).

A source told The Canadian Press the deal is contingent on the NHLPA signing off by Jan. 11. Training camps would then open the next day and the season would start Jan. 19.

The NHL and NHLPA plan to review the proposal on a conference call Saturday and could meet in person by the end of the weekend.

For the first time during these negotiations, the league is also willing to consider one-time compliance buyouts to help teams transition from a system that saw players receive 57 per cent of revenues to one that pays them 50 per cent. It has proposed giving each team one such buyout, with the money counting against the players’ overall share in revenue but not an individual team’s salary cap. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed the existence of the new offer Friday.

According to sources, the league’s detailed proposal covered both the major issues that have divided the sides and a number of the smaller ones they’ve already found agreement on during more than five months of negotiations. It also put the $300 million US in deferred transition payments back on the table.