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Originally Posted by powderjunkie
I think we need to remember where things were in June when they were working on the return to play plans. Tons of people here were shouting for them to scrap it and focus on this upcoming season. Tons of people thought the bubble would fail.
It's reasonable to conclude that getting back on the ice that summer was the main priority then; the players one some major concessions in the process that helped ensure some stability moving forward. Further negotiations were inevitable in anything but the best-case-scenario. There is nothing surprising here.
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Not surprising? The league is trying to get out of a signed agreement under the terms of which they have already signed players to contracts which were structured around those conditions.
Why do the players need to be held accountable for the league’s poor decisions? No one forced the league to agree to that language and I’m still baffled they would agree to something so short sighted.
For arguments sake let’s say a lot has changed since the MOU was signed, has that much changed since the start of free agency? Had the league brought this up prior to free agency I think the players would be much more receptive, instead this probably feels like a bait and switch to them, and rightfully so.
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The MOU tentatively included Nov. 17 and Dec. 1 for camp/season start dates. Obviously that's not happening. Both parties know a lot more now than they did when they agreed to the MOU.
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You’re comparing apples to oranges unless the language regarding paragraph 17 explicitly stated that it was only a tentative agreement.
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The players can choose between nothing, and something. The owners can choose between a big immediate loss, or a small(ish) immediate loss.
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It’s not that simple for the players, and the owners know this.
A player has to consider whether the percentage of their salary that they’ll make this season is worth the risk of injury or illness, especially for players on expiring contracts playing on bad teams or inline for an increase.
Imagine being on the last year of a deal paying you $2.5M/season playing for a non playoff team, your last 5 seasons you’ve increased your point totals year over year and are likely to get a roughly $5M/year longer term contract. Is it really worth risking getting injured or having a really off year and losing $0.5-1M per season on your next contract for the under $2M paycheque this season? I get that an argument could be made that the same player would weigh the same pros and cons even if their salary weren’t being reduced but what I’m saying is the league is giving a lot more incentive to the players to do so. Not just monetarily but also from a collective bargaining perspective, the PA are not going to want to open the door for the league to arbitrarily change the terms of an agreement.