NHL owners want Fehr’s head, but must deal with him

It’s difficult to believe that the dispute between the National Hockey League and its players has come down to an argument over the length of contracts.

That appeared to be the case Thursday when NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said a five-year limit on individual player contracts is “the hill we will die on.”

The rhetoric seems a tad melodramatic, but it might be instructive to look at the issues that are separating the two sides after what appeared to be two days of productive negotiations earlier this week in New York.

The five-year term is important, but it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker in a league where the average player’s career is less than five years.

Heading into this season, there were 81 players in the league with contracts longer than five seasons. That’s a shade more than 12 per cent of all players. Most of those contracts don’t pose a problem. For example, the league has agreed to allow contracts of up to seven years for teams signing their own free agents, and that would cover many of the 39 players with six-year deals and the 17 who are on seven-year deals.

And there’s reason to believe the owners don’t have problems with contracts longer than five years. Twenty-four of the 30 teams have given players contracts longer than five years. Twenty-two of those contracts were negotiated in the past year, with many of them getting done after commissioner Gary Bettman said he would push for a five-year limit. Hardliners Jeremy Jacobs, Ed Snider and Craig Leipold were among the owners who snubbed their noses at Bettman.

The problem lies with the frontloaded deals that often extend beyond the reasonable term of a player’s usefulness. There are 19 players with contracts of 10 years or longer and, with the exceptions of Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, Jordan Staal and the chronically ailing Rick DiPietro, these are deals that have been stretched out to ease a team’s salary-cap burden. While these contracts free up money for the rankand-file members of the NHLPA, the principal benefit is for a handful of fat-cat teams and a group of players that represents two per cent of the workforce. The focus should be on eliminating these contracts.

The length of the new collective bargaining agreement is also a contentious issue that could be solved by splitting the difference between the owners’ 10-year offer and the eight years proposed by the players. The prospect of 10 years of labour peace is attractive, but you can understand why the players might be a tad nervous. They have done well financially over the past seven years, but continued growth seems unlikely after the lockout has alienated fans and sponsors, and again it is the owners who must bear the lion’s share of the responsibility.

One reason the players should think about cutting their losses and getting back to work is that they are poised to keep some of the provisions of the last CBA. Free agency and arbitration remain unchanged, and there has been no move to end guaranteed contracts. The “makewhole” provision, which Bettman took off the table Thursday, wasn’t perfect, but the owners did sweeten the pot.

Of course, the elephant in the room is Donald Fehr, who is the most effective leader in the NHLPA’s history. You can’t help but get the feeling the owners want Fehr to fail and the talks are more about adding him to the list of former executive directors than they are about getting back to work.

The owners have been quick to question Fehr’s leadership and his honesty. When the talks broke down Thursday, the NHL’s policy of omerta was temporarily suspended so that the four so-called “moderate” owners who were added to the negotiations this week, could express their disappointment. To varying degrees, they all suggested that the talks were going well until Fehr rejoined the discussion.

Every player in the NHL wants to be back on the ice and there are some who would accept the owners’ latest offer in an instant. But the majority of the players are solidly behind Fehr, and the owners must deal with him if they hope to salvage any part of this season.