Just when you thought the public posturing couldn’t become more frustrating/annoying/pathetic, NHLPA head Donald Fehr suggested to the Toronto Star the longer the lockout goes then the players might want to abolish the salary cap.

I’m sure we all believe the players would sit out a 2nd year just to get rid of the cap. Didn’t they try that in 2004? Mr. Fehr, a quick tip, don’t insult your fans. We know they ultimately don’t have a say in this ridiculous lockout, but throwing out the "cap card" might have been your least intelligent statement to date.

The salary cap is not going anywhere, and any mention of that is purely a waste of time and a lame scare tactic.

Currently 127 NHL players are playing in Europe with another 40 or so young guys playing in the AHL. That is only 167 of the 720 who played last year. They might end up with a total of 240 within the next month, but that is still less than 1/3 of the union playing.

I don’t see the union getting more unified while the majority sits out.

This lockout will hurt the middle and bottom tier players, who make up close to 75% of the league.

Here is a quick look at how the last lockout saw a major increase of rookies in 2006.

2003                                                                                                 2004

41 rookies had ten+ points.                                    41 had ten+ points.
46 played 40+ games.                                             54 played 40+ games.
112 played 10+ games.                                           115 played 10+ games.

2005                                                                                         2006
LOCKOUT                                                                  77 had 10+ points.
                                                                                     79 played 40+ games.
                                                                                     150 played 10+ games.

2007                                                                                      2008
48 had 10+ points                                                     52 had 10+ points.
51 played 40+ games.                                             56 played 40+ games.
113 played 10+ games.                                          115 played 10+ games.                                                    

2009                                                                                      2010
49 had 10+ points                                                     40 had 10+ points.
56 played 40+ games.                                             44 played 40+ games.
120 played 10+ games.                                           102 played 10+ games.

2011                                                                                      2012
57 had 10+ points                                                     47 had 10+ points.
51 played 40+ games.                                             51 played 40+ games.
125 played 10+ games.                                           113 played 10+ games.              

In the eight years, two prior and six after, around the lockout the league saw an average of:

46.8 rookies with 10+ points.
51.1 rookies played 40+ games.
114 rookies played 10+ games.

Meanwhile in 2006 after the lockout:

77 rookies had 10+ points.
79 played 40+ games.
150 played 10+ games.

I don’t put much stock into the point totals being different, because scoring was up across the league in 2006, but there was a massive increase of 55% more rookies playing at least 40+ games in 2006 compared to the other eight seasons.

The longer the lockout goes the higher that number will climb. More rookies means more veterans losing their job.

Here is a list of players who will be UFAs and RFAs at the end of the season. Via www.nhlnumbers.com

ANA
Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Teemu Selanne, Saku Koivu, Toni Lydman, Nate Guenin and Viktor Fasth.
RFAs: Matt Beleskey and Dan Sexton.

BOS
Nathan Horton, Andrew Ference, Aaron Johnson and Tim Thomas.
RFAs: Tuukka Rask and Jordan Caron.

BUFF
Matt Elllis, Robyn Regehr, Jordan Leopold, Adam Pardy, Alex Sulzer and John Scott.
RFAs: Cody Hodgson, Luke Adam, Mike Weber and Jhonas Enroth.

CGY
Jarome Iginla, Blake Comeau, Anton Babchuk, Brett Carson and Henrik Karlsson.
RFAs: Roman Cervanka, Mikael Backlund, Chris Butler and TJ Brodie.

CAR
Alex Semin, Chad Larose, Anthony Stewart, Tim Brent, Tim Wallace, Joe Corvo and Brian Boucher.
RFAs: Andreas Nodl and Marc-Andre Gragnani.

CHI
Viktor Stalberg, Jamal Mayers, Bryan Bickell, Michal Rozsival and Ray Emery.
RFAs: Markus Kruger and Nick Leddy.

COL
Milan Hejduk, Chuck Kobasew and Ryan O’Byrne.
RFAs: Ryan O’Reilly. (not signed now)

CBJ
Vaclav Prospal, Mark Letestu and Adrian Aucoin.
RFAs: Artem Anisimov, Ryan Russell, Colton Gillies, John Moore, Steve Mason and Sergei Bobrovsky.

DALL
Jaromir Jagr, Derek Roy, Michael Ryder, Brendan Morrow and Mark Fistric.
RFAs: Tom Wandell, Tomas Vincour and Richard Bachman. Jamie Benn (not signed)

DET
Valtteri Filppula. Dan Cleary, Drew Miller, Ian White, Jimmy Howard and Joey Macdonald.
RFAs: Jan Mursak, Jakub Kindl and Brendan Smith.

EDM
Ryan Jones, Darcy Hordichuk, Lennart Petrell, Ryan Whitney, Ladislav Smid, Andy Sutton and Nikolai Khabibulin.
RFAs: Sam Gagner, Magnus Paajarvi, Anton Lander and Theo Peckham.

FLO
Stephen Weiss, Mike Santorelli, Jerred Smithson, Tyson Strachan and Jose Theodore.
RFAs: Peter Mueller, Shawn Matthias, Jack Skille and Keaton Ellerby. Dmitri Kulikov (not signed now)

LA
Simon Gagne, Dustin Penner, Brad Richardson, Rob Scuderi and Davis Drewiski.
RFAs: Kyle Clifford, Trevor Lewis, Slava Voynov, Alec Martinez and Jonathan Bernier.

MINN
Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Matt Cullen, Stephane Veilleux and Niklas Backstrom.
RFAs: Cal Clutterbuck, Steven Kampfer, Marco Scandella, Justin Falk and Jared Spurgeon.

MONT
Colby Armstrong, Petteri Nokelainen, Francois Bouillon and Peter Budaj.
RFAs: David Desharnais, Ryan White, Michael Blunden and Yannick Weber. P.K Subban (not signed now)

NASH
Brandon Yip, Brian McGratton, Scott Hannan and Chris Mason.
RFAs: Patric Hornqvist, Nick Spaling, Matt Halischuk and Roman Josi.

NJ
Patrik Elias, Travis Zajac, Dainius Zubrus, David Clarkson, Cam Janssen, Marek Zidlicky and Peter Harrold.
RFAs: Adam Henrique, Jacob Josefson, Matthias Tedenby and Bobby Butler,

NYI
Marty Reasoner, Brad Boyes, Eric Boulton, Lubomir Visnovsky, Mark Streit and Evgeni Nabokov.
RFAs: Josh Bailey, Jesse Joensuu and Travis Hamonic.

NYR
Jeff Halpern, Chad Kolarik and Steve Eminger.
RFAs: Carl Hagelin, Derek Stepan, Ryan McDonagh and Micheal Sauer. Micheal Del Zotto (not signed now)

OTT
Daniel Alfredsson, Guillaume Latendresse, Peter Regin, Sergei Gonchar and Mike Lundin.
RFAs: Kaspar Daugavins and Ben Bishop.

PHI
Ruslan Fedotenko, Jody Shelley, Kimmo Timonen, Andreas Lilja and Micheal Leighton.
RFAs: Erik Gustafsson.

PHO
Steve Sullivan, Raffi Torres, Boyd Gordon, Nick Johnson, Kyle Chipchura, Mike Smith and Jason LaBarbera.
RFAs: David Schlemko, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Chris Summers, Mikkel Boedker and Lauri Korpikoski.

PITT
Matt Cooke, Pascal Dupuis, Craig Adams, Warren Peters, Dylan Reese and Ben Lovejoy.
RFAs: Tyler Kennedy, Eric Tangradi and Dustin Jeffrey.

SJ
Ryan Clowe, Michal Handzus, Douglas Murray and Thomas Greiss.
RFAs: T.J Galiardi, Andrew Desjardins, Frazer Mclaren and Jason Demers.

St.L
Andy Macdonald, Jamie Langenbrunner, Scott Nichol, Chris Porter, Andrew Murray and Jeff Woywitka.
RFAs: Chris Stewart, Patrik Berglund, Matt D’Agostini, Evgeny Grachev, Alex Pietrangelo, Ian Cole, Kevin Shattenkirk and Kris Russell.

T.B
B.J Crombeen, Nate Thompson, Adam Hall, J.T Wyman, M.A Bergeron and Mathieu Garon.
RFAs: Benoit Pouliot and Brendan Mikkelson.

TOR
Tim Connolly, Joffrey Lupul, Matthew Lombardi, Clarke MacArthur, Tyler Bozak and David Steckel.
RFAs: Carl Gunnarsson and Korbinian Holzer.

VAN
Manny Malhotra, Mason Raymond, Chris Higgins, Maxim Lapierre, Andrew Ebbett, Aaron Volpatti, Steve Pinizzotto, Alex Edler and Andrew Alberts.
RFAs: Dale Weiss.

WASH
Mike Ribiero, Joey Crabb, Matt Hendricks, Wojtek Wolski, Roman Hamrlik, Tom Poti, Jack Hillen and John Erskine.
RFAs: Marcus Johansson, Karl Alzner, Michal Neuvirth and Braden Holtby.

WPG
Nik Antropov, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Kyle Wellwood, Antti Miettinen, Ron Hainsey, Grant Clitsome, Derek Meech and Al Montoya.
RFAs: Blake Wheeler, Bryan Little, Alexander Burmistrov Zach Bogosian and Paul Postma.

That is 275 players. How many of them won’t sign another NHL contract due to the lockout? I’d guess at least 100.

 

I truly wonder how many of the existing NHL players wouldn’t suit up tomorrow at a 50/50 split. I know that number isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t solve all the problems of the league (more on that tomorrow), but I seriously doubt the majority of the NHLPA is ready to sit out a full season.

The list below consists of veterans who have yet to sign a deal. How many would have signed if a new CBA was in place?

Dan Ellis, Marty Turco, Mike Mottau, Brian Rolston, Jason Blake, Jochen Hecht, Tom Kostopoulos, Jaroslav Spacek, Andrew Brunette, Brendan Morrison, Sean O’Donnell, Kristian Huselius, Radek Martinek, Brett Lebda, Radek Dvorak, Tomas Holmstrom, Marco Sturm, John Madden,Scott Parse, Kurtis Foster, Mathieu Darche, Chris Campoli, Petr Sykora, Milan Jurcina, Mark Eaton, Matt Gilroy, Jesse Winchester, Blair Betts, Daymond Langkow, Kurt Sauer, Brent Johnson, Brad Winchester, Dominic Moore, Jim Vandermeer, Jason Arnott, Brett Clark, Mike Commodore, Byron Bitz, Randy Jones and Mike Knuble.

Even if there wasn’t a lockout some of these players wouldn’t be back, but at least 10-15 of them would have signed.

Hopefully the public posturing will end soon, but keep in mind that with every passing day a few more members of the NHLPA will have played their last game in the NHL, and for many more they will have seen their final NHL contract.

Will the majority be willing to lose an entire year of salary, and possibly their final contract?

Only they know the answer.