[GullFoss]

I don't see the big deal about this.

1) escrow is common in high salary positions in financial institutions too. People grumble, but they're not too upset after a few years because (a) they get paid interest on funds held back and (b) once your in the cycle, your: current year salary - current year escrow + last year's escrow = close to your current year salary.

2) collective salaries are determined by the cap not by escrow repayments. If the league/players wanted to fix this, the obvious solutions are one of three:

- reduce the annual inflator until no claw back
- reduce player salary across the board until no claw back
- move to a system where you negotiate % of team salary for each player rather than dollars. So for example tkachuk negotiates 5% of flames payroll for each of next 6 years. And then his salary is say 5% of 50% of hockey revenue divided by 31 in every year of deal. And maybe received 85% of this up front and 15% held in escrow until the numbers are confirmed. And that way, he's not "losing money off his salary" but it's effectively the same outcome.

It's hardly worth having a lockout over.