Is NHL/New Jersey Devils En Route To Canceling Next Season?
By Nick Villano
New reports show a worst-case scenario that hockey fans have seen before.
The NHL was getting praise prior to the restart for how quickly the players and the owners were able to not only come to an agreement on a return-to-play scenario but also a new collective bargaining agreement. The players took serious concessions in the first year to make up for the loss of revenue due to the pandemic in order to make up for those losses later. Well, because this is the NHL, that agreement did not last long.
Larry Brooks of the New York Post reports the NHL is asking for another 13 percent salary deferment. This is on top of the 10 percent salary deferment and the 20 percent escrow the NHLPA already agreed to. Basically, the NHL is asking for close to 50 percent of the players’ salaries to be paid out either later or possibly not at all.
Apparently, there is a clause where some teams can ask some players to take separate deferrals, but this new report is apparently something that would be league wide.
Then, Nick Kypreos of Line Movement tweeted this on Wednesday:
The @NHLPA has a Ex board call 4pm today. 80-100 players expected to take part. Included is news per @NYP_Brooksie the NHL wanting to renegotiate economic terms of a 4 month old agreement.
— Nick Kypreos (@RealKyper) November 18, 2020
Some hint the possible threat of @NHL cancelled season if changes aren’t met @Line_Movement
Canceling the season is not a threat that hockey fans take lightly. The entire season was lost in 2004-05 and half of the season was lost in 2012-13. Collective bargaining agreements are hard to come by in the NHL. Now, just months after we all thought things were finally going in the right direction, a short-sighted decision could bury the league even further.
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Owners trying to squeeze more juice out of the orange so they don’t face losses in 2020-21 could impact the money they make for the next 20 years. The NHL will lose fans. That much is certain. They will lose reporters and coverage in general. There’s no way that all the blogs, podcasts, and social media sites can survive with literally zero hockey on the horizon. That’s not even counting the traditional media like newspapers and broadcast networks who will just forget hockey existed.
As for how this impacts the New Jersey Devils, it’s terrible. The Devils signed Corey Crawford knowing the first year of the deal will likely go better than the second. Nikita Gusev and Kyle Palmieri will both go to free agency without seeing what this team looks like after tumultuous 12 months. P.K. Subban loses his redemption opportunity, and now he’s another year older. Travis Zajac will lose quite possibly his last year in a Devils’ uniform. Jack Hughes has to sit on his bad rookie season for another 12 months. The Devils won’t have a season to trade its players at the trade deadline to get extra assets in a defense-heavy draft.
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This is awful for the Devils. It’s understandable that billionaires don’t like losing money, but they are usually able to make long-term decisions when it comes to money. This is a rash decision based on a pandemic and the uncertainty that comes later. There has been positive news regarding a COVID-19 vaccine. There is reason to be optimistic, but the owners’ and the players’ negotiations is ruining that optimism for hockey fans.