nyr7andcounting
Registered User
- Feb 24, 2004
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Yes, that's the point. They realized that there current strategy wasn't going to get them a deal that they liked, so rather than take one of those offers in February (the $42.5M is the most talked about) they changed their stance in order to get a better deal.thedjpd said:Ah, but this indicates a change in stance, now doesn't it?
How we callously forget - the reason the $42.5 million cap was offered was because the players did NOT want linkage. At that time, linkage was the devil and this offer was fair.
Now, since a change in position indicates that as revenues go up, so do the player's salaries, they view linkage as a GOOD thing.
If you apply the players' stance on the February deal to this currently, then yes - it got a helluva lot worse.
But now linkage to them is a good thing, so it looks better because it's something they want too.
A change in opinion sure changes perspective, doesn't it?
It was obvious that the NHL's offer for a hard cap was never going to get high enough for the players to see that as the better option than a potential linkage deal, which they knew they could get from the NHL. Stances change over the course of negotiations and if your strategy fails than your most likely going to get the best deal by giving in to the other sides stance and negotiating a lot of other things in your favor.
One thing I will say is that we don't know what the range they are talking about is based on. If it's based on $1.5-$1.7B in revenues, something like that, than the cap is most likely going to be $42.5M at some point in this CBA anyway. And as far as I can tell that's the kind of revenues they seem to be going on. If not than maybe the deal didn't get better, if the range is on $2.1B than you may be right, but I don't think that's the case.