2012 NHL season lockout?

So Today my plans for the Hockey tour I mentioned in my very first post took a huge hit with the news that we face the increasing liklihood of yet another season lockout the third since 1994! The NHLPA were set to make their first counter-proposal to the owners today, but the odds of the 2012-2013 season starting on time are dropping by the day.
As it Stands:

The current NHL collective agreement expires on September 15, 2012.

The circumstances behind current negotiations are little changed from previous years: Depending on who you believe, as many as 10 NHL teams are seriously losing money, while another 10+ or barely break even. The majority of league revenues are generated by 8-10 highly successful franchises.

Having established a salary cap to end the 2005 lockout, the league will likely emerge from its next round of negotiations with a cap system still in place.

Barring a major overhaul of that system, there are five items that need to be resolved if the NHL is to avoid a strike or lockout in 2012.

1. The Players' Share
   The salary cap and floor are calculated to ensure the players receive an agreed percentage of NHL revenues. It began at 54% in 2005 but as league revenues increased, was near 57% in 2010-11.
   The problem is the NHL believe the players' share is too high. Trends in other major US sports appear to favor the NHL's position. In a recently signed deal, the NFL reduced the players' share to about 46-48&, while the new NBA CBA splits revenue approximately 50-50 between players and owners. The players will argue that each league defines its revenues differently, and when those differences are accounted for, the NHL players' share under the current CBA is on a par with the NBA and NFL. This is the core issue that drives all the others. Once a revenue split is agreed to, all that's left to decide is how each side will divide its share.
2. The Salary Cap "Floor"
   This is the minimum season payroll of an NHL team. A formula in the 2005 collective agreement sets the annual floor at about $16 million below the salary cap. The problem is for the money-losing teams, who would prefer the option to carry much lower payrolls. Spending to the floor means they lose even more cash. The league will likely seek to lower the salary floor in relation to the cap, or eliminate the floor altogether. The players will fight this. A salary floor helps distribute earning potential on all 30 teams, rather than having too much salary tied up with a few wealthy franchises.
3. The Guaranteed Contract
   Under the current CBA, a player is guaranteed to earn every dollar of a signed contract, unless the team buys him out. Buyouts are expensive: a team pays two-thirds of the remaining contract value and absorbs a long-term salary cap hit, while the player is free to sign and play elsewhere. As in 2005, the NHL is seeking ways to save team owners from themselves. It's not unusual to see star players signed to contracts running 10, 12, or 15 years, with enormous price tags and salary cap burdens. The NFL's widespread use of non-guaranteed contracts, allowing teams to cut players with little financial penalty, surely looks attractive to owners. The league will also likely seek a term limit of 10 years or less. This will be a big fight for the players, as the guaranteed contract is about the only guarantee a player has in a game where many careers are short.
4. The Escrow Payment
   To ensure the correct revenue split between teams and players, a percentage of player salaries is placed in escrow during the season. (In 2010-11, the withheld share was 12.5%.) When exact NHL revenues are determined at the end of the season, the escrow account is divided among players and owners to ensure that the targeted split has been met. Players are concerned that a small number of troubled franchises – such as the Phoenix Coyotes, operated by the league as it searches for a new owner - drag down overall revenues and suck up much of the escrow money. Effectively, their pockets are being picked to prop up lame-duck teams.
   That opens the larger issue of franchise stability and profitability, which the NHL and team owners consider to be their business, not the players.
5. Revenue Sharing
   To even the financial playing field, high-revenue teams distribute money to low-revenue franchises every season. This could be a point of contention between have and have-not teams. The current revenue sharing system is not considered especially generous. But the rich teams are surely reluctant to give away more cash. The players will surely suggest increased revenue sharing as a solution for the game's weakest markets. The argument will likely go something along the lines of: Overall NHL revenues have increased substantially since 2005, so the NHL makes plenty of money. If the wealthy franchises share more generously with the money-losers, all teams can be financially sound and competitive.


Summary
Aug 14, 2012 - From the way things have been going so far, I'm feeling extremely pessimistic about the chances of there being a season. It just seems that there's more extreme issues this year than there were back in 2004. There's just too many things that the owners want that would cut into the salaries of the players.
There's the 5 big issues  mentioned above and whenever the CBA does get finished, I'm guessing that maybe only 3 of them get solved:

1) Players agree to a 52%-48% share in revenue with the players getting 52%. Owners are looking for the players to drop from 57% down to the 45-48% range, but I don't see them willing to agree to that.

2) Owner shelve the idea of limiting contracts to a maximum number of years (I think they're looking for five years max, maybe 10). It's really their fault anyway that so many are being handed out. From what I can remember, three more 10+ year contracts were handed out this offseason. I'm not seeing any way that they win this one.

3) Salary cap floor is lowered a bit more so losing teams and owners don't have to spend as much if they don't want too. Leave it up to the owners if they want to have a crappy team.

I think a lot of it depends on what happens in today (Tuesday's) first offer from the NHLPA. It'll give a clear view on how far apart the 2 sides are. It looks pretty certain though that at least the first 3 months of the season are gone. In which case that is my trip over with.