At the end of the current NHL season the Collective Bargaining agreement will expire. The league, owners, and players union seem to be content with how the league is progressing since the 2004-2005 lockout. There are some issues that will be brought up though.
The big issues are Revenue Sharing between the league and the owners and players and the cap floor. This issue is confusing with a lot of paperwork, and given how the NBA and NFL's agreements went, it will give a precedent on how the NHL will handle this issue. This issue really has no impact for fans so there is really no need to go into depth into it. The cap floor is the tricky issue, small market teams want it to be flexible and allow them to go below it somewhat, the league wants to maintain the hard cap. The cap margin probably will be expanded to lower the cap floor somewhat but the league will stick to the hard cap.
Here's some of the smaller issues that will be brought up:
Salary Cap Evasion
Teams that are spending up to the cap have bad contracts on their books. Some teams keep the contract, some teams trade the contract, and some teams bury the contract. There are 3 teams that are doing this. The Chicago Blackhawks did it with Christobol Huet which allowed them to keep their core players after the 2010 cup run. The Washington Capitals did it with Michael Nylander to pay Ovechkin and Backstrom's salaries. And the New York Rangers did it with Wade Redden to bring in the big fish in this past summers free agency crop in Brad Richards. What all 3 teams did was bury the bad contract in the minors or in Huet's case in Europe so it's not on the NHL team's books. The players union is going to fight for a stricter cap hit for doing this.
Re-entry Waivers for players coming back from overseas professional leagues mid-season
The players union is going to try and abolish it so the situations with Kyle Wellwood and Evgeni Nabokov don't happen again.
A one-time free buyout for every team
If the one or both of the previous points get passed for the player's union, the owners will want a one time buy out option that won't take a cap hit. This was a policy used for the first season when the league came out of the 2005 lockout, it was designed to allow a team to buy out a contract to get under the Salary cap. This time if this policy is brought back it will allow a team to get rid of a bad contract. This probably will affect players with lifetime contracts, players such as Luongo, Dipeitro, and Kovalchuck are on the short list of possible buy outs
Further exploration into player safety and concussions
Right now the big issue for the league is concussions. Some rule changes that were instituted during the 2005 lockout to open up the game may change. Things like allowing a defenseman holding up a forechecking forward when the forward dumps the puck into the zone and allowing more time for the other defenseman to get the puck, allowing a little more holding and hooking, and to the extreme bringing back the 2-line pass rule. The league also will take a hard look at player equipment and how/if it can be changed.
The final issue and this is a somewhat serious issue for players is whether the league will continue to take a 2 week break every 4 years to allow NHL players to play in the winter Olympics. Already Alex Ovechkin and Geno Malkin said they would take a leave from their NHL teams to play for Russia in the 2014 games, especially since the games are going to be hosted in Russia. The status quo for the league allowing players to play in the Olympics probably won't change but it may be used as a bargaining chip during the CBA negotiations.
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