The National Hockey League Players Association has made its first proposal in the latest round of Collective Bargaining Agreement talks with the NHL.

The union says its proposal to the league includes a smaller percentage of revenues for players and an expanded revenue sharing program to help struggling teams.

Donald Fehr, the executive director of the NHL Players Association, says players are set to surrender as much as $465 million in revenue under the proposal if the league continues to grow at an average rate. He says that number could balloon to $800 million if the league grows at the same rate it has over the past two seasons.

That proposal called for lowering the players’ share in revenue and introducing new contract restrictions, including a five-year cap on deals.

Commissioner Gary Bettman says the NHL needs time to evaluate the proposal and that the two sides would reconvene Wednesday morning. “It’s clear to me that they didn’t put it together in an hour or two,” Bettman said. Neither side was tipping its hand as to how the proposal was received.

TSN’s Aaron Ward says that his “first impression” was that the NHLPA‘s proposal was not seen as a “counter attack” to the NHL‘s July 13 offer, and secondly, it contained economic elements that were “interesting” to the NHL.

RDS’ Renaud P Lavoie reports that the NHLPA won’t be asking the NHL to do away with the salary cap.

The current CBA expires September 15. The NHL has said there will be a lockout if a new agreement isn’t in place by then. The regular season is slated to start on October 11.


Subscribe to NHL Trade Report updates on Facebook, on Twitter, by Email, or RSS.