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Originally Posted by Locke
Well said, the problem is that there is no agreed upon pay scale which most Unions have, so some make more than others and escrow effects some more than others, so the squeaky wheel is getting the grease here.
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I don’t think the problem is the lack of a pay scale. Even with a pay scale in place salaries fluctuate between employees and from year to year. The biggest difference I can see in this CBA compared to most CBAs is that most CBAs protect the employees from the owners and the NHL’s CBA seems more geared towards protecting the owners from themselves. All players have the same percentage of their salaries withheld in escrow so I could easily see a player making the league minimum being as frustrated or more frustrated about having their salary held back because more GMs decided to overspend than to not. I can’t see the majority of players risking a lockout to appease the small “squeaky wheel” minority of the highest earning players in the league.
The escrow likely won’t be eliminated altogether without major changes to the way the cap is calculated so it’s also unlikely to be removed without a prolonged work stoppage, which both the players and the league obviously don’t want to go through. Personally I think the PA would probably settle for a fixed escrow amount like the NBA has. It doesn’t eliminate escrow but it would give them more certainty of outcome than they currently have and shift some of the financial risk to the owners.