Found it out of the blue that the Islanders are moving too... Didn't realize that was really on the table.
I think the move to Brooklyn surprised everyone. Wang (owner of the Isles) had been wanting support for a long time to replace the Colliseum but just wasn't getting it. I'm sure there's a deal in the works to cut in the Nets owners as well, expand the Brooklyn arena and see if they can't compete with the MSG entity.
As for the lockout, I'm really, truly trying to figure out what the players want. They 'lost' the last lockout and managed to nearly double their salaries in the time in between. So while I see their point that they will lose money in the short term if they cave, I'm really not clear on the mathematics of losing an entire season. Certainly it hurts the owners to a degree (though some benefit from having only losses with near zero expenditures because those can be more easily written off than losses with full expenses) but losing a full season will hurt the players as a group far, far more. If only because the negative repercussions will lead to decreased revenue, meaning they'll see less salary increases while the owners see less revenue. On top of that they don't seem to consider much of the following:
-last lockout saw players lose a full year's salary - as Roenick indicated that was 6 million dollars he'll never, ever lay a hand on
-maybe 5% of players can achieve nearly the same salary in the KHL as they're getting in the NHL
-probably 20% of players can ultimately obtain regular league play overseas in either European or Russian leagues but certainly nowhere near the same salary they are currently achieving
-that leaves roughly 75% of the league that really doesn't have much of an option (of which maybe 10% will find employment in the AHL and similar for pay leagues, at roughly 1/10 of their NHL salary)
-after the last lockout, nearly 20% of the players never played in the NHL again. ouch.
-the average NHL career is 4.5 years long so giving up one of those years is a little over 20% of your earning potential
This is worth fighting a principle on? You can't take principles to the bank and really, let's not kid ourselves, these guys are fighting solely for their own pocketbooks, they won't give a crap 6-8 years down the road when they are mostly retired.
The owners aren't great by any shakes, but even NBA players figured out that playing for millions of dollars per year less some percentage was a hell of a lot smarter than not playing at all and not getting paid. With all due respect to NBA players, I honestly never thought of them as smarter than NHL players. Clearly I was wrong.