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Report: NHL makes concessions in new offer to union

Gary Bettman

It looks like there might finally be some new life in the CBA negotiations. The NHL has sent the union a new proposal according to ESPN and TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, RDS’ Renaud Lavoie and, originally, Eklund of Hockey Buzz.

Perhaps the biggest news is that the NHL is now willing to allow for contracts to be a maximum of six years under normal circumstances and seven if a team is re-signing one of its players. That’s up from the NHL’s previous demand of five-year term limits, which deputy commissioner Bill Daly once called “the hill we’ll die on.”

Here are some of the other main points:

-- The NHL is now willing to allow a variance of 10% in contracts, up from its previous offer of 5%.

-- $300 million in Make Whole or, as NHLPA boss Donald Fehr prefers to call it, “transition payments” is still on the table.

-- The salary cap for 2013-14 would be $60 million.

-- Each team would be allowed to buy out one contract prior to 2013-14 without it impacting the salary cap. However, the money would still come out of the players’ share of hockey-related revenues.

-- The proposed CBA is still a 10-year deal and an “extremely detailed proposal,” according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Michael Russo.

It’s worth noting that Daly would not confirm this offer when asked by LeBrun, although an NHL player has been cited as a source.

There’s also no negotiating session scheduled yet and the NHLPA had yet to make an official statement on the matter.

Update: Courtesy ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun, here are the full details of the NHL offer.