That said, the NHL is still demanding too much.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nhl–collusion-question-goes-right-to-the-heart-of-the-nhl-lockout.html

“When Major League Baseball lost those collusion cases, its CBA included this key line: “Players shall not act in concert with other players and clubs shall not act in concert with other clubs.” The NHL’s last CBA included no such language. It also said teams had the right to match the offer sheets their RFAs signed, and if they didn’t, they could receive compensation in the form of draft picks – the higher the salary, the higher the price in picks.

The NHL could argue that offer sheets were rare not because of an unwritten rule but because of the written rules, which were agreed upon by both sides in bargaining. Teams often felt an offer sheet would be futile, because the other team would match, or that it wouldn’t be worth the cost, because it would require a price so high the other team wouldn’t match and would result in the loss of as many as four first-round draft picks.

The league could point out that there were still some offer sheets, not none, and that RFAs signed lucrative contract after lucrative contract even without the help of offer sheets.

Finally, the league could allege that collusion works the other way, too. Do agents manipulate the market to make sure their clients receive the highest prices? Did Zach Parise and Ryan Suter work together as unrestricted free agents this summer when they signed matching 13-year, $98 million deals with the Minnesota Wild?

Proving collusion is as difficult as proving other slippery, shadowy offenses, like tampering. But here is the potential problem for the NHL: If anyone could do it, it would be the Fehr brothers, and if anyone would try, it might be the NHLPA. Since Don Fehr took over as executive director, the NHLPA has been unafraid to challenge the league, even if the challenge is unprecedented or seems like a long shot. See the realignment battle. See the Alberta and Quebec court cases.

The NHLPA could argue that there doesn’t need to be specific language in the CBA barring clubs from acting in concert. Free agency implies that a individual player is free to deal with individual teams, and all you need is antitrust law to keep two or more teams from ganging up to set prices.

The union could ask some hard questions: If the written rules in the CBA are enough, why would anyone need an unwritten rule, too? Did an unwritten rule make offer sheets even more rare than they would have been otherwise? “