“We were brainwashed.”

That’s what Los Angeles Kings forward Sean Avery had to say in yesterday’s L.A. Times about the NHL players’ decision to accept their union’s negotiating strategy during the lockout.

“We burned a year for nothing. We didn’t win anything. We didn’t prove anything. We didn’t get anything. We wasted an entire season.”

Avery’s exactly right. After a year-long battle with the NHL’s owners, it appears that the NHLPA is ready to capitulate. Most major points of contention in their ongoing collective bargaining process appear to have been resolved in the owners’ favor, and with the two sides expected to announce an agreement in the coming fortnight, the union membership is left to contemplate what was lost.

The average NHL career lasts just four years, meaning that the lost season cost the average player a quarter of his career earnings. Fan apathy is at an all-time high and it will take years for goodwill to be restored, but there is a silver lining in the dark clouds overhead.

Representatives for the league and union have spent most of the past month behind closed doors, negotiating the terms of a CBA that, by all accounts, will represent a paradigm shift – both in terms of economic and on-ice rules – for the floundering league. A flurry of coaching and management moves in recent weeks only reinforces the suspicion that the league is ready to haul itself out of the deep freezer.

First and foremost, player salaries will for the first time be linked directly to league revenues. The NHLPA will reportedly receive 54% of league revenues, a total that includes salaries, signing bonuses, and performance bonuses. Based upon an anticipated $300 million revenue reduction from 2003-04 to 2005-06, that means the players’ union can expect to receive approximately $972 million in total (or an average of $32.4 million per team).

Teams reportedly will be required to maintain payrolls within a predetermined range, currently believed to be between $24 million and $39 million. There will also reportedly be a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax on payrolls exceeding a mid-point threshold of approximately $30 million. Finally, it’s expected that teams will be allowed a one-time opportunity to buy out existing contracts that will not count against the salary cap.

In order to guarantee that their salaries do not exceed the prescribed 54%, a significant percentage of player salaries (believed to be in the 15-20% range) will be placed in escrow until real league revenues have been ascertained. When combined with the already agreed-upon 24% salary rollback, it means that the players’ paychecks will be about 40% smaller next season than they were in 2003-04. Mike Modano will still be able to feed his infamous dog, but it might be Kibbles ‘n Bits filling Fido’s dish rather than Eukanuba.

A bone of contention still to be resolved is the issue of 2004-05 contracts. It is expected that those contracts will not be honored, though that would fly in the face of a legal precedent set in 2000, when the league took successful legal action against Alexei Yashin. A member of the Ottawa Senators at the time, Yashin sat out the 1999-2000 season, and an arbitrator found that the recalcitrant Russian owed the team an extra season of service. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that the players would cite that case as precedent in pursuing legal action to force the league to honor 2004-05 commitments.

For the local teams, this could prove significant. The Rangers are in fairly good shape either way, thanks mostly to their salary purge at the 2004 trade deadline. Only half of Jaromir Jagr’s $8.36 million salary will be charged to the Blueshirts, with the Washington Capitals absorbing the rest. Defenseman Karel Rachunek recently signed a binding deal with a Russian club, absolving the Rangers of another $1.14 million obligation.

That leaves the Rangers with $26.43 million committed to 14 players; if, as expected, they buy out Bobby Holik and Darius Kasparaitis, it will free up an additional $10 million under the salary cap. Needless to say, Glen Sather and company should be big players in what will be the most volatile free-agent market in the history of North American sports.

The Islanders had $28.6 million committed to 17 players for 2004-05; for 2005-06, they have $15.6 million committed to just four players. Yashin, who’s due $7.6 million for each of the next five seasons (six if 2004-05 contracts are honored), represents the biggest problem. Though the cost of buying him out would be quite significant (over $25 million), it shouldn’t be too difficult for the Isles to replace his production with a player costing just $2.5 million, a scenario that would afford the team some additional, valuable cap room.

Across the river in New Jersey, the future is not as bright. Even after the 24% rollback, the Devils had $46.3 million committed to 24 players for last season. The Devils have $15.4 million committed to 10 players for 2005-06, but the list of names does not include stars like Scott Niedermayer, Scott Stevens, Patrik Elias, Scott Gomez, or Brian Rafalski. Suffice to say that GM Lou Lamoriello has his work cut out for him.

All told, it’s shaping up to be a wild summer. Some of the NHL’s brightest stars – Martin St. Louis, Marcus Naslund, Zigmund Palffy, Mike Modano, Peter Forsberg, et al.- will be unrestricted free agents, and it’s not unreasonable to expect that close to half of each team’s roster will turn over.

The balance of power could shift so dramatically, in fact, that it wouldn’t be a shock to see one of the league’s perennial doormats sip from the Stanley Cup a year from now. In a final bit of irony, it seems that a severely limited payroll might work more to the Rangers’ advantage than did an open checkbook.

Mr. Greenstein is the editor in chief of InsideHockey.com.