The first indication of the relationship between the NHL and the NHLPA in the post-Owners’ Lockout III Era will come within the next week when the parties are expected to discuss realignment that would go into effect with the 2013-14 season.
You will recall, last winter the league unilaterally announced a plan to realign into a four-conference setup for this season. The plan, which featured two seven-team conferences, two eight-team conferences with the top four teams in each conference then qualifying for the playoffs, was quashed within days when the NHLPA refused to give its assent.
Now, they’re trying it again, and the rules of engagement remain the same in that the union must approve any such change in working conditions, though, as deputy commissioner Bill (What Hill?) Daly noted in an email to Slap Shots, that approval “must not be unreasonably withheld.”
“We are working on a realignment plan for next season,” Daly wrote, “but it has not been finalized or approved [by the Board of Governors] yet.”
PA Executive Director Don Fehr said by phone on Friday the union’s objections a year ago were based on the prospect of increased travel that would go into effect with the proposed realignment and the inequity of proposed playoff qualification.
“We expect to talk with the league on the subject this week,” Fehr told Slap Shots. “A year ago, when we raised the issue of increased travel for teams, the league did not have mock schedules for us to review that might have alleviated our concern.
“And we had an issue with the fact that teams would either have a mathematical advantage or disadvantage of qualifying for the playoffs depending upon whether they’d be in a seven-team or eight-team conference.”
Major League Baseball’s radical realignment that goes into effect this season — under which the Astros move from the NL Central to the AL West, thus creating two 15-team leagues (and three five-team divisions in each) and the need for inter-league play every day — was created largely because of the MLBPA’s concern over the imbalance of having a six teams in the NL Central and four in the AL West.
“We’re certainly prepared to work with the league on realignment,” Fehr said. “If they present the same type of four-conference structure but have the information for us to review regarding scheduling and travel, and have a different playoff format that can ameliorate our concerns in that area, we’ll take it from there.”
* Upon further review, I am going to withhold even feigned outrage at the latest maneuver by the Islanders — who also operate under the aliases Team Floor and Team Waiver Wire — to spend as little money as possible while meeting the collective bargaining agreement’s minimal AAV requirements.
For the deal in which Garth Wang, er, Charles Snow, sorry, general manager Garth Snow and owner Charles Wang, acquired the suspended Tim Thomas and his $5 million over-35 cap hit so that the club might be able to move veterans such as Lubomir Visnovsky ($5.6 million cap hit), Mark Streit ($4.1 million) and Evgeni Nabokov ($2.75 million) for draft picks at the deadline without falling below the floor, is actually a pretty clever one.
The fact, as Daly told us on Friday and we reported on Twitter, that the Islanders would not get the $5 million cap-hit benefit next year if Thomas is not in an Islanders uniform in 2013-14, even if his contract is tolled, turns what might have been a comical attempt to circumvent the CBA into a canny exploitation of a unique situation.
The only reason Thomas’ contract counts against the cap while he sits home is because of his over-35 contract status. It’s not as if this is a scenario likely to become commonplace — or even repeated.
The problem, though, is that at some point the Islanders are going to have to declare themselves a major league operation. At some point, the Islanders and Wang have the responsibility to the paying customers — still somehow plural — to put a representative product on the ice.
Because this season is a charade. This roster is a pennies-on-the-dollar exploitation of the fan base that does not so much as suggest an attempt at an honest rebuild for the battered fan-base, but an attempt to move the goal posts, perhaps all the way to Brooklyn.
Get this: Thomas, Visnovsky, John Tavares, Matt Moulson, Martin Grabner, Kyle Okposo and Frans Nielsen combine for a full-season cap hit of $27.783 million. Yet because of contract structures and suspension, the Islanders actually are paying these seven players a sum of $16 million.
There are just four games at the Coliseum following the April 3 trade deadline, so there’s little harm if the Islanders strip down for the final month.
The harm is if maneuvering to save the owner some money become management’s sole purpose. The harm is if the revenue-sharing money for which the Islanders qualify for the first time under the new CBA, is not shared with players.The harm is if what we see is all the fanbase is going to get for as long as the team remains on Long Island.
For that would indeed be an outrage.