Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

Early Sunday morning NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr announced there was a framework in place for a new collective bargaining agreement. They should of been forced to hug for a while.

Here are the particulars. For the first year, the salary cap is $60 million but teams can spend up to $70.2 million in the transition period, while the floor is $44 million. Sources said the 2013-14 salary cap, a very divisive issue, will be $64.3 million, while the floor will remain at $44 million. Contract salary variance is capped at 35 percent from year to year, with the provision that the last year can’t vary more than 50 percent from the highest-salaried year, a source told ESPN.com. Revenue sharing will spread $200 million, with a $60 million NHLPA-initiated growth fund included.

Although the deal still requires language clarification, legal fine-tuning and ratification from both sides, a verbal agreement has been reached on the major points. “We still have a lot of work to do,” Bettman said, “but it’s good to be at this point.”

The deal still requires majority approval from both the board of governors  by Tuesday and the NHLPA before it can become official.

A 48 and 50 game schedule is said to be ready from the NHL. They need to get teams permission to start formal mini camps and start selling tickets fast. Games are cancelled through Jan 14th so the season will start from the 15th to the 19th.  It’s not an 82 game schedule but at least it will give a true test for a conference winner from both West and East. Out of conference games are the one really lost in this shortened season. It should give a true galvanized winner from both conferences to battle it out. Lord Stanley has been waiting long enough. Time to drop the puck and decide who wants it the most.

Well a few days off. The Owners and Players will meet in a last ditch effort to SAVE the 2012-2013 season. Well mainly 2013. Fact remains tomorrow may be the biggest indicator of success or failure to reach an agreement. If one is made teams and franchise will scramble into action. A schedule will be drafted. Arenas will be contacted so no clashes will come into play.  After a few days of front office red tape and ratifying this and that fans may even see emails and phone calls from their sales offices.

Teams should start practicing as soon as a tentative deal is in place. My thoughts are the NHL conceded the most from the distant between the two sides. I think a key point was the stipend issued to the players. No longer could the owners starve them out of hiding. Hopefully it is a mutually benefiting deal for both side. I also hope it covers several years so we are not right back here anytime soon.

If and when an agreement is announced you will see things move very quickly. The following are my predictions on the coming events:

A shortened season similar to the NBA will be announced. With a Normal season around 82 games and 4 Pre-season, you will most likely see 1 Pre-season and for the regular season my guess is 66 game season. This is how to accomplish it. Home and Home series. First off you have 15 Opposite Conference teams. If you play them Once at HOME and Once on the ROAD. 30 games.

Same Conference teams not in division would be 10 Home and Away. 20 more games. Division will be 4 teams playing twice at home and twice on the road. 16 games with a total of 66 games. Of course you have some Back to Back games vs your division. But at least they are at the SAME disadvantage.

Another idea would be NO out of Conference games this season. Kind of radical but most games in Division and Conference to produce a champ from the West and East. With 3 Home and 3 Road vs. 4 Division rivals or 24 games. Also 2 Home and 2 Road vs. same Conference or 40 games. Which gives you a 64 game schedule. Myself I like option #1. I want to play every team and not just Home or Road but BOTH for fairness.

This is a quick article before tomorrow’s zero hour deal I fully assume will be consummated. Not my normal article. Just wanted to quickly get something out to my readers. HOPE!