Collective bargaining agreement

The two sides have agreed to not renegotiate the CBA, but there's still an enormous elephant in the room - prorated salaries - that will have to be resolved if the NHL and its union want labor peace.

With the NHL and its players' association on either side of the divide when it comes to returning to play, things will come down to the two L's - leverage and language.

Even though the league's bargaining gambit is "exceptional and unusual," this has more to do with financial realities than it does collective bargaining or labor law.

We're in the middle of a devastating pandemic and the NHL and its players are having a very public battle over dollars. Both sides believe they're right, but both come off looking terrible.

It took a global pandemic for the NHL and NHL Players' Association to be more in lockstep than they've ever been in their history. The result is labor peace for the next six years in an environment that is anything but stable.

We know that the billionaires won't be crossing swords with the millionaires for at least six more years. We know we'll be seeing NHLers at the Olympics. What we don't know is how much damage the global pandemic is going to do to the hockey industry.

According to a source, the NHL and NHL Players' Association are putting the finishing touches on a memorandum of understanding that will lead to a new collective bargaining agreement that will guarantee labor peace until at least 2024-25.

NHL players did not receive their final paychecks of the season and they might not ever get them. But if you're hoping for long-term labor peace between the NHL and NHL Players' Association, that might not be a bad thing.