NHL offers 50/50 split in revenue, no rollback in order to preserve 82-game season

The National Hockey League issued a new proposal to its players on Tuesday that significantly pushed the sides toward a potential resolution of the lockout: a 50/50 split on hockey-related revenue — as it's currently defined — without a traditional salary rollback, in an effort to preserve an 82-game 2012-13 season beginning on Nov. 2.

An even more significant part of this proposal, which the NHLPA later revealed was in the neighborhood of six years: The preservation of player salaries in the initial years of the deal, according to Pierre LeBrun of ESPN. It's been on the of the NHLPA's most consistent demands: The owners honor the value of the contracts they handed out.

NHLPA chief Donald Fehr will take the offer back to his negotiating committee. But the devils' in the details.

There's a now-familiar vocabulary in the National Hockey League's collective bargaining talks. Words like "escrow" and "hockey-related revenue." We know what they mean, but not always how they're defined. Here's another one for that glossary: "rollback."

The NHL's initial proposal to the NHLPA last summer was like a parody of what one should look like, and it included a 24-percent rollback on existing contracts. The subsequent proposals, including one submitted by the NHL on Tuesday during their talks in Toronto, haven't.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a salary reduction, as Darren Dreger notes:

Need to see provision for year 1 salary protection. Initial player response: 1% increase. Still a 12-13% reduction in yr 1 (7/57= 12.2%).

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) October 16, 2012

The NHL has been aiming for a 50/50 split for months. It's where it was willing to arrive. In the Luntz Global fan surveys leaked by Deadspin, a 50/50 split "like in other sports leagues" was explicitly mentioned.

As far as preserving salaries, Elliotte Friedman of CBC has a theory and it's consistent with what we've heard about the NHL's plans:

I'd expect the key thing for players to discuss is what sounds like an NHL offer to "return" whatever is lost on their salaries this season. My guess: league has said if you have a long-term contract and you lose xx% this year, we will find a way to "return" it over term. What that means for players on a shorter deal, I don't know. But, my sense is NHL has at least made a proposal that should get things moving.

We'll update when other details of the proposal are revealed, but the bottom line is that we can feel a twinge of optimism here. The NHL went to 50/50, and tossed out many of the poison pills from previous offers. Donald Fehr didn't reject it. This is progress.