Analysis: NHL offer puts ball firmly in players' court

• If players don't make reasonable counter-proposal, the blame will shift to them
• Putting a full season back into play was a brilliant move by the league
• Nov. 2 startup and short camp won't be a problem for either side

Don't clear your calendar yet for the NHL playing a full 82-game schedule starting on Nov. 2.

The owners' offer of a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue with locked-out players is a game-changer because it takes negotiations where everyone, including players, knew they were headed. But we are still many compromises away from saving a full season.

Now it's up to players to decide how badly they want to play all 82 games.

NHL Players Association executive director Donald Fehr certainly won't accept the owners' offer as is, but the players' response will tell us whether they'll play a full schedule or risk losing one. If players don't come back with a reasonable position, the blame will shift to them.

Players have long known their share of revenue would drop from 57% to 50%. But they thought it was grossly unfair to expect them to take an immediate cut considering they accepted a 24% salary reduction and gave in on a salary cap when the last contract was negotiated in 2005.

When the owners' first proposal this summer demanded players' share of revenue drop from 57% to 43%, players could play the role of victims. The public perception was owners were being unreasonable, engaged in a money grab. When Commissioner Gary Bettman canceled the first two weeks of the season, owners bore the brunt of the blame.

But now the NHL looks like the reasonable party by offering a plan to save the season. A hockey fan generally will view a 50-50 split as a fair compromise. Regardless of whether this leads to a deal, the offer gives the league a public relations victory a day after it was reported that it had hired a focus group specialist to help it deliver its message in a more positive fashion.

The players' next move isn't simple because the NHL has strategically offered a proposal that can't be easily dismissed. They want a gradual reduction from 57%, and this is a straight drop to 50%. But the NHL offered a provision to mitigate players' salary loss in the first two seasons. It's not everything players want, but it's a reasonable place to start negotiating.

The brilliant move by the league was putting the full season back in play. Canceling two weeks meant players would lose 7.7% of their pay. If another month of the season soon was canceled, which the league is contemplating if talks remain stalemated, their total pay loss hits 23.1%, more than players would lose next season with a straight drop to 50%.

Players would gladly accept adding one game every five or six weeks or extending the season to accommodate the make-up games. And they'll be thrilled that training camp will last a week. Most players believe the need for a lengthy training camp is outdated because they are religious in their offseason training. If it were up to players, camp would never be longer than 10 days.

A Nov. 2 startup is no problem for arenas. NHL teams were told from the beginning to prepare as if the season could start at any moment.

Although Bettman didn't reveal details, the league backed off some of its harsh demands on arbitration and entry-level contracts, etc. It is still asking for a five-year limit on contract lengths with a provision to restrict teams from adding fake years to lower a cap hit. Owners are making it clear that the 50-50 split is the key issue, and they are at least offering the players a path toward an agreement, even if that path needs to be widened first.

The trick for players will be to make a counter-proposal that will launch negotiations instead of ending them. Players certainly can appreciate what happens when one side makes a proposal that seems grossly unreasonable to the other side.

Players have asked all along what they are getting in exchange for concessions. If the sides start to meet continuously, players can tell owners what they want. That's what happens in true bargaining. But we wouldn't know that based on these negotiations because there has been no true bargaining to this point.