As @TSNBobMcKenzie is suggesting, the part of the CBA proposal that we all knew would "get real"--and become a sticky wicket for both NHL teams and players who want to remain with their current employers--is the likely combination of an immediate rollback in the salary cap and some sort of punitive measures designed to retroactively do harm to the teams who've signed players to long-term and "lifetime" contracts.

If the cap goes down, we're already likely to see some "amnesty buyouts" as Bettman was dead-set on a dispersal draft last time around, and will probably want to see talent redistributed around the league this time, too...

And if the ways that long-term and "lifetime" contracts' cap hits are determined change, regardless of whether you're a Red Wings fan, Flyers fan, Wild fan or Predators fan, there are so many teams that have entered into long-term contracts with players whose year-by-year cap hits would require partial dismantling of their teams that every *fan* should be worried about the league's potential desire to essentially ham-fist teams.

What do I mean by that? Well, if long-term deals' cap hits are suddenly either averaged by the highest 3-5 years, or are charged on the real-world dollar amount (and in Wild and Predators fans' cases, including signing bonuses), we'll not only see a slate of buyouts, but also a slate of high-profile buyouts that will yield at least a halfway decent crop of UFA's that most teams won't have the cap space to sign to previous market-value deals.

Under that scenario, you end up having star players signing for supporting role-players' salaries, and depending on how punitive the NHL's proposal is, you could have a radical re-setting of the "marketplace's" salary bar, essentially enforcing a further rollback in salaries down the line via screwing over player, agent and team leverage in bidding for top talent. That's a very sneaky way to continue to reduce player compensation over the long haul.