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Salvador wants “the right deal so this doesn’t happen every five or six years”

If the players accept a big cut in NHL revenue to end the lockout, who’s to say the owners won’t seek another big cut the next time the CBA expires?

It’s a concern that’s shared by many players, including Devils defenseman Bryce Salvador.

“We need the right deal so this doesn’t happen every five or six years,” Salvador told The Star-Ledger. “That’s what the players are striving for. We just have to get it right.”

But how exactly the two sides craft a deal that keeps the league from coming back for a bigger slice of the pie every time the CBA expires is the question.

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr believes the best answer is to get rid of the salary cap, thereby eliminating the regularly scheduled fight over how to split up the revenue. Whatever the free market decides is the split, as it was in the past.

However, Fehr also knows that’s a non-starter for the owners, which is why he has to keep the NHLPA unified in hopes the owners get the message that the players won’t be bullied. Sort of a “mutual assured destruction” idea.

In the meantime, we all get to enjoy hockey’s version of the Cold War.