The NHL wanted to levy a luxury tax, a financial penalty that is assigned by the league, on salaries that were higher than the average.
However, the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) viewed that as a variation on a salary cap and refused to accept it.
Unlike in the 1992 strike, it was the owners who wanted to make sure that they got the right deal, setting the opening position for new commissioner Gary Bettman.
[2] Bettman's "NHL mandate was: aggressive expansion, a new American TV deal, a focus on growth (especially in the southern U.S.), and lasting labor peace … under the owners' terms, of course.".
Under the leadership of executive director Bob Goodenow, the NHLPA position was that it would be open to a small tax, however the bulk of the financial goals could be achieved through revenue sharing.
An op-ed article in The New York Times by James K. Sebenius and his colleague Prof. Michael A. Wheeler brought to prominence a suggestion from fellow professors Howard Raiffa and David Lax: Revenue should flow into a separate escrow account touched by neither players nor owners until the dispute was resolved.
However, large market teams such as Toronto, Detroit, the New York Rangers, Dallas, and Philadelphia eventually broke with the league, as they feared that an extended lockout would outweigh the benefits from getting a salary cap and didn't want to be the first league in North America to forfeit an entire season just to help out their small-market colleagues.
Many NHL superstars, notably Patrick Roy, Luc Robitaille, Brett Hull, Joe Sakic, Doug Gilmour, Rob Blake and Mike Richter, took part in this competition.
Also in the meantime, Wayne Gretzky and some friends formed the Ninety Nine All Stars Tour and played some exhibition games in various countries.
In the end a salary cap for rookies was instituted, and all players signing a rookie contract needed to sign two-way contracts which allowed teams to send them down to minor league teams at minor league-level pay rather than the pay rate they received while playing for the parent NHL club.