The Bruins' owner does a good job of putting it all out in terms so simple even an NHLPA leader can understand them. While I think the entire article is insightful, this struck me in aprticular:

"We've got [Joe] Thornton and [Sergei] Samsonov playing for 10 cents on the dollar [in Europe] right now and they're not insured for it, or if they are, they're paying for it," he said. "It's silly. They may want to do that two or three years in a row, I don't know. Maybe when we come back, they won't be the greatest players ever. It isn't that we didn't offer a whole lot of money. Right now, if we come back as weak as I think we're going to come back, we will not be able to afford what we've offered [previously]. This is what is the foolhardiness. Doing damage to this game has not improved their negotiating [leverage]. This is going to hurt them because we have to tie [salaries] to revenues."

Exactly. Foolhardy.