From the Archive: Group II Cold War

The Hockey News Archive is an exclusive vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 stories for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com. Today, we will revisit a story from Bob McKenzie from 1998.

There is no mystery as to why so many NHL GMs are taking such a hard line in negotiations with so many unsigned restricted Group II free agents. It is, as the saying goes, because they can.

“That pretty much sums it up,” said agent Steve Bartlett, who is doing battle with Edmonton Oilers’ GM Glen Sather in an attempt to sign center Doug Weight to a new contract.

For the second consecutive year, the early-sea-son NHLscape is being dominated not by who’s on the ice, but who isn’t at training camp and who isn’t likely to be around when the 1998-99 season opens Oct. 9.

Last year, it was Paul Kariya, Sergei Fedorov, Michael Peca, Derian Hatcher, Oleg Tver-dovsky, Jeff Friesen, Petr Nedved and Sergei Gonchar, amongst many others. This year, Friesen, Nedved, and Gonchar find themselves back where they were a year ago and have plenty of company in the form of Weight, Rob Blake, Trevor Linden, Ziggy Palffy, Scott Niedermayer, Jason Allison, Ryan Smyth, Eric Daze, Bryan McCabe, Kyle McLaren, Janne Niinimaa and Saku Koivu, amongst many, many others.

In fact, when camps opened in mid-September it was expected as many as 70 unsigned restricted Group II free agents would be on the outside looking in. How many of them are still idle when the regular season begins remains to be seen, but it’s likely to be more than a few.

Why? Why so many? Why now?

Because it’s exactly what the league and the NHL Players’ Association bargained for.

“It’s how the system is structured,” said NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow. “In the collective bargaining agreement, there was some transfer of rights from the younger players to the older players.”

It was one of the few sacrifices the players made. The owners had wanted a salary cap or payroll tax. They didn’t get it. The owners wanted to limit restricted free agency, but it went from age 32 to 31. They wanted to abolish salary arbitration, but it still exists.

The ownership gains, if you will, were entry-level salary restrictions and no salary arbitration for any player under 25 or with fewer than five years of service. And the owners were able to maintain the right-to-match clause that severely limited movement for the densely-populated Group II sect.

The results should have been predictable- a heyday and payday for the unrestricted free agents, no-fuss, no-muss entry-level negotiations, and a gigantic stalemate for all the players in between.

Many suggest the CBA isn’t working, not for the owners and management, that player salaries continue to spiral up, fueled primarily by lucrative contracts for unrestricted free agents and, also, landmark deals for Group II superstars such as Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, and others.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman begs to differ.

“If this CBA doesn’t work, and that won’t be evident for some time yet, then we’ll fix it,” Bettman told THN. “But this CBA. if it’s used properly, allows each team to spend only as much money as it sees fit, as it can afford to spend. All I say to teams is, ’Spend what you can afford to spend.’ “

Bettman leaves unsaid what Oilers’ GM Sather readily admits.

“Historically, we (in management) have capitulated and given the players so much more money than we had to,” Sather said. “We’ve got to be a lot smarter. This CBA will work if it’s used properly; it doesn’t work well if you disregard it and we’ve disregarded it. All I can say is I hope we do the right thing for the game now.”

Not every GM is as supportive of the system as Sather. Sharks’ GM Dean Lombardi, who is looking at a training camp without Group Ils Friesen, Owen Nolan, Mike Ricci, and Mike Rathje, is critical of Bettman and Goodenow for negotiating a system that so obviously pits players and management against each other and encourages players to withhold their services.

“It all goes back to the failure of Goodenow and Bettman to reach the type of agreement where you’re building any trust,” Lombardi said.

“I don’t blame the players. I blame our side and everybody around these players. Everybody tells them it’s a business. If you want to apply American business principles to the athlete, he probably should be sitting at home because he’s going to triple his money.”

Historically, that’s what has happened. If a player sits out, sooner or later, someone will come to him with a financial offer that more than justifies the players’ patience and/or stubbornness.

But maybe, just maybe, that worm is turning. Pittsburgh Penguins GM Craig Patrick allowed Nedved to sit out the entire 1998-99 season. Taking the hard line has opened some eyes. Privately, agents fear the same thing could happen over and over again this year. Principle and attempting to get “market value” is one thing; leaving millions on the table is quite another.

“Craig Patrick should be our hero,” Sather said. “He’s one guy with the intestinal fortitude to do what’s right. A lot more of us have to do the same.”

Of course, not all restricted Group II free agents are created equal. The more experienced Group Ils are entitled to arbitration rights, and players such as Montreal Canadiens’ right winger Mark Recchi and St. Louis Blues’ center Pierre Turgeon used salary arbitration to their benefit.

But others, such as the Oilers’ Weight and Los Angeles Kings’ defenseman Rob Blake, chose to pass on arbitration.

“That’s because they feared they wouldn’t get as much as they think they’re worth,” Sather said.

Bartlett, agent for Weight, won’t say that but suggests marquee players such as Weight and Blake should be paid according to “the marketplace.”

YOUNGER GROUP II FREE AGENTS HAVE NO LEVERAGE

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“Just because these guys are Group Ils and they’re not likely to get a (free-agent) offer sheet, doesn’t mean the marketplace can be ignored,” Bartlett said. “The market is the market.”

But Group Hs doesn’t have a lot of leverage. The right-to-match clause chills free agency. Passing on salary arbitration means the players’ only weapon is withholding services, which is not insignificant in the case of stars like Weight and Blake.

Bartlett senses the militancy in the managerial ranks and concedes in many cases; the leverage is clearly on the side of management.

“I’m not suggesting the league is guilty of collusion,” Bartlett said, “but it’s quite obvious there’s a party line out there and a desire on their part not to break ranks.”

It’s going to be quite a battle. And it stands to be an even more difficult fight for the younger Group Ils, those under 25 or with fewer than five years’ service. Many of them are coming off their first NHL contracts, earning less than $1 million. But, based on their play and prime-time roles with their clubs, they are looking for “market value,” which is often $2 million and $3 million a year.

Management believes the CBA was designed to limit salaries for these players still designated as in the entry-level phase. It’s the apprenticeship theory, but not one the top young players are prepared to accept.

Their problem, though, is unless they are indispensable to their teams, they have no leverage. The club can simply hang them out to dry, but that creates another set of problems.

“Is that really the attitude you take with a valuable young asset who’s supposed to be a building block for that franchise?” Bartlett said.

Can the Montreal Canadiens afford to do irreparable harm to their relationship with Saku Koivu? But can they afford to give him $3 million or $4 million a year?

And so it goes. The ugliness of the Nedved situation could spread this year as other teams vow to push the envelope beyond where they have in the past.

Clearly, especially in the case of the Group Hs without arbitration, the club has all the leverage. And that is precisely what GMs are telling agents as they stare each other down.

It’s not a matter of whether management is going to beat up on them, some GMs say, but whether they let them off with a slap in the face or deliver a real kick in the teeth.

In either case, it looks as though more NHL clubs will be flexing muscles they couldn’t or wouldn’t flex in the past.

Because they can.

If the restricted Group II free agents are as committed to their cause, it’s not going to be a pretty picture.