Former Bruins forward Brian Rolston, who signed with the Minnesota Wild in the offseason as an unrestricted free agent, said he found out about the rollback percentage and other concessions (which include a luxury tax on payrolls above a $45 million threshold, as well as a revamping of the entry-level system and arbitration) only a couple of days before the union presented its proposal to the owners Thursday.

"I think there was a lot of reaction from the players like, `Twenty-four percent, this is ridiculous,' " said Rolston. "It's something where we put a lot of faith in [Bob Goodenow] and we put a lot of faith in our executive committee to make these decisions for us. If you brought in every NHL player, there would probably be a lot of guys pretty [ticked] off about losing 24 percent. I know there are a lot of guys who didn't know that was going to be the case.

"We're obviously very serious about getting something done and if the owners don't understand this is a good deal, I really don't see us going any further than this," Rolston said. "I think we're setting back our salaries almost 10 years, it seems like. I think there had to be a bit of a rollback and we addressed it, and I think we addressed it in a major way."