The owner's position on having a hard salary cap has already been aided by the player's resignation that further curtailing of entry-level contracts and imposing stricter bonus clauses on rookies is necessary. The rookie salary cap is actually a great starting point of negotiation since both sides are in agreement that this section of the CBA needs tweaking. The biggest flaw of entry-level contracts was clearly exposed when Marian Gaborik's entry-level contract expired last off-season. Coming off three magnificent seasons with the Wild, Gaborik was poised for a pay increase when contract negotiations hit a snag. The Minnesota Wild offered a bump in Gaborik's pay based on his $1.075M base salary he earned with his entry-level contract. Gaborik and his agent came back to the Wild with a proposal for a new contract with a salary request above what Gaborik made with his entry-level base salary plus his triggered performance bonuses. While Gaborik's base salary may have been just over $1M for each of his first three years, with incentive bonuses Gaborik earned roughly $3.3M per season from his first contract. Gaborik felt he was due a raise on $3.3M per year while the Wild contended he was due a pay increase from $1.075M. Because of those entry-level bonuses a player signing his second contract may already be in a 2nd salary tier and hence the reason you see so many holdouts like Mike Comrie, Martin Havlat and Gaborik when it comes to signing their second contract.

The NHLPA and the owners need to define a strict cap for bonus-laden entry-level contracts because the ramifications three years down the road are a major contributor for the ballooning rise in player salaries.

	The owners and players have engaged in a fierce battle over the inclusion of a salary cap. (Source: Getty Images)

The Tampa Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators are two young and elite clubs that are often quoted as the best examples that you don't need to spend big money to be competitive. These teams are cited as examples that a cap isn't as necessary as Bettman and the owners preach because they're able to compete with higher financial echelon clubs. The Lighting won the Cup last year with a payroll of $34M and the Senators have hovered amongst the league leaders for years with a modest middle of the pack payroll. Both teams have built with youth, acquired primarily through the draft and trades, all the while maintaining a stance of avoiding the temptation to splurge in the free agency market. Fans of these clubs and those proponents who hold up their accomplishments as justification that the league doesn't need a salary cap are in for a rude awakening 2-3 years from now when many of the core players will jettison off to other clubs. A few years down the road when all these young players are signing their 2nd and 3rd contracts they'll reach a point where the money they ask for will move them right out of the team's economic market. Why would a guy like Havlat linger as a 3rd line RW behind Hossa and Alfredsson when he could play as a first line winger with a different club and get paid first line money? Or how will Tampa be able to juggle paying top salaries to three players in Lecavalier, Richards and St. Louis when all three will be lured by other clubs promising them franchise player status. The truth is many of these young players will grow tired of being buried behind great depth and the inability to earn a bigger salary and will fly the coup. A salary cap would mitigate the rate at which this would happen. A soft salary cap that the NBA implemented favours re-signing players by allowing a team to stretch their cap size offering in the effort to retain a player. The Lakers leveraged this when they were able to outbid clubs like the Clippers whose best offer fell $20M short of what the Lakers were able to offer under the soft cap.

The only thing that's ever mentioned about the cap is how it will put a ceiling on team payrolls, create a level of economic parity and give the small market clubs just as much of a chance to compete for the championship as the New York's, Detroit's and Toronto's of the league like the NFL does so successfully with the Green Bay Packers. The E True Hollywood side of a salary cap is a dark and seedy place that many fans will grow to hate. If the NHL implements a salary cap, fans will have to get use to terms such as: cap-clearing move and cap casualty. A hard salary cap system creates a lot of inflexibility for teams that are already hovering near the cap limit and are interested in trading or dabbling in the free agent market. In order to sign a big free agent or make a blockbuster the team must first clear space and this leads to tons of lopsided trades and heart wrenching player cuts for fans. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had to part company with arguably with the most popular player in franchise history when they were forced to cut safety John Lynch to free up extra bankroll to address other team needs. On the other hand for clubs like the Pittsburgh Penguins cost cutting moves have robbed the team of Jaromir Jagr, Ron Francis, Alexei Kovalev, Robert Lang, Martin Straka and Darius Kasparatis over the years so how much of a difference will a cap make?

Last year the Phoenix Suns traded Stephon Marbury to the Knicks and in the process picked up nothing more than expiring contracts and a few draft picks. What were the Suns' motives for making the trade? Team CEO Jerry Colangelo put it best: "It not only relieves us of a significant financial liability, but also gives us a tremendous opportunity to compete in the free agency market." The decision to free cap space is made to look all the better this season with the impact free agent signees Quentin Richardson and Steve Nash have had on the team. For every Phoenix Suns organization there's an Atlanta Hawks horror story of having plenty of money available and nobody to sign. To compensate, organizations like the Hawks sign mediocre free agents (i.e. Antoine Walker) to premium player wages just to show fans they are willing to spend money.

All along Gary Bettman and the owners have contended that revenue sharing must be married to a salary cap to properly address the league's financial woes. The NFL is the model league for revenue sharing, the bulk of which comes from league broadcasting revenues that are equally spread amongst all 32 teams. The NHL can't follow the NFL's model because they have a joke of a TV deal with NBC. The NHL is an attendance driven league and the only way you can create revenue sharing is to split up a portion of regular season and playoff attendance gates. Considering the Calgary Flames barely made a profit last year despite marching all the way to Game 7 of the finals it remains to be seen how happy owners will be with dividing their prime source of revenue with 29 other clubs. This leads to an even bigger question: Why disperse rail-thin revenues to 30 clubs when the league could share revenue amongst 26 or 24 clubs? Contraction is a much bigger topic reserved for another day but the league would certainly look healthier by ridding themselves of poor hockey markets like South Florida, Nashville and Carolina to name just a few.

	Gwen Stefani has the perfect theme song to sum up the fans' frustrations with this lockout.

Overall an owners-driven CBA solution would allow salaries to be capped at a manageable and exact ceiling level, improving the way in which teams can retain talent and create an economic level of parity. Unlike a luxury tax system, a salary cap does not provide the lower-level teams with much financial reprieve. The Nashville Predators, Pittsburgh Penguins and Minnesota Wild will still languish around the $20-$25M payroll level without a way to spend more without incurring more debt. At least with a luxury tax system the lower level teams can afford to increase their payrolls from the luxury tax contributions of big spenders. The NHLPA's latest CBA draft includes a shocking 24% rollback of all current salaries, which addresses a lot of current concerns but doesn't provide much security for the long term. The NHLPA's rumoured 75 cents on the dollar over $40M luxury tax never materialized, which is a shame because in my opinion it provides the best method out of any proposed thus far to "cap" rising salaries and provide new forms of revenue to lower-level teams.

If only the two sides had made progress like this in September we would probably have already seen an agreement signed. If a theme song was ever needed for this lockout Gwen Stefani's song captures the fans' frustrations best with her lyrcis:

"What you waiting, what you waiting, what you waiting, what you waiting for? Take a chance you stupid…"