Those are two normal reasons to decertify, and I could see a court determining that the decertification wasn't "legitimate" if the PA continued to exist in some fashion, but I don't this is legally correct. Players can decertify and file an antitrust suit if they want. A court can't force players to stay in their union if their is a decertification vote. It's funny because most times it's employers who are looking for decertification so they don't have to deal with the union anymore. In the monopoly that we give the NHL the union is the only thing giving them the claim that they're not illegally colluding to set market prices.
But they aren't colluding to set market prices, as shown by wide variances in FA- value is widely set by performance. That and the cap for individual contracts was agreed on in the CBA even though only one player has ever signed for that limit (ovechkin iirc)
They need a purpose- nfl players attempted the same stuff and courts found that their lockout was legal and players inc could not continue their decertification and nhl has a lot more ground to stand on. The only true thing that could come into contention through decertification is the draft, which would then have huge implications across all North American sports leagues which I have my doubts courts will touch with a 10 foot pole - though not denying that there could be changes
Decertification may free players from the draft but values of players would basically be reset- player value from the current median on downward would take a significant hit. Stars will be paid higher. Thing is, variances would largely remain the same unless some idiot of a team signs a holik for $8 million (wtf sather) the pure difference will be teams buying power will be different- instead of associating value, it will be associating what they were willing to pay. (In terms of star players) So for high end players, they'd just neglect the bottom 20 teams
Actual player dollar spend will decrease across the league (due to a shift to maintain business profitability) as well as the average dollar spend per player ( as more money would be appropriated to stars relative to average players)
One could argue the CBA and the cap is maintaining logical spending parameters and its increasing the average nhl player salary, while decertified, it really only helps the top 5% in majority of scenarios while suppressing everyone else
