The big pickle here is that the NHL is never going to sign off on increasing the “players’ share” of “Hockey Related Revenues” above the upper limit of 57% of HRR, and the players won’t want to have any percentage of that share dedicated to player transfers instead of player payrolls, because even if individually-negotiated transfer fees would not count against a team’s salary cap, a $10 million transfer fee for the next Alex Ovechkin, for example, would be counted against the “players’ share” of revenues, and as such, if that bumped the “players’ share” over 57%, the players would have to pay that fee for the NHL via escrow payments. 

The old player transfer fees were sort of like the league’s prize money for playoff round-winners and Stanley Cup winners--the millions of bucks don’t come from the “players’ share,” and they don’t come from HRR.  Instead, the NHL just sort of “donates” the money, and I believe that was the case for IIHF Transfer Agreement fees as well. 

Somehow, the NHL and PA would have to find a way to allow individually-negotiated transfers to come via a cash-call to ownership or some other measure that doesn’t involve the PA basically subsidizing the fees.  If that can’t happen, then the PA would be looking for a serious carrot as they’d have to sell, “Hey, we’ve got to pay for the Kings to get this superstar out of Russia” line to the 700-plus-player membership.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 10/05/08 at 09:05 AM ET