2012 NHL Lockout: Lockouts Over! NHL and NHLPA Have Tentative Deal In Place To End Lockout

A meeting between both the National Hockey League and NHL Players Association which started around 12:30 PM on Saturday afternoon, has finally concluded after 16 hours of continuous negotiations. The result? A brand spanken' new collective bargaining agreement. Here is what we know as far as details of the tentative agreement are concerned.

• 10-year CBA length, with a mutual opt from both sides after eight years.
• Seven year contract limits for free agent signings, and eight years for re-signing with current team.
• Year to year variance for contracts was settled at 35%.
• Cap ceiling for the 2013-2014 season will be set at $64.3 million, and a cap floor of $44 million.
• Revenue sharing will spread $200 million, in addition to a $60 million PA initiated growth fund.
• Teams will be allocated two compliance buyouts which must be used before the start of the 2013-2014 NHL season. This will count against the NHL's share of the pie.
• The draft lottery will now make all non-playoff teams fully eligible for the first overall draft pick.
• There is no set time table for the start of the NHL regular season, but there are reports saying it could come as early as January 15th. Training camp is expected to officially open sometime near the end of the next week/beginning of the weekend.
• The pension deal which is still not completed, is set to revolve around the same structure as the MLB currently has with its union.
• The tentative deal was officially reached around 5:00 AM, with a short, joint, press conference from both Gary Bettman, and Donald Fehr.

However though, this is just both parties agreeing to the framework of the deal, there is still a ton of paperwork, ratifying, reviewing, and approval to be done before we have an official collective bargaining agreement.