There is only one day left before the league-imposed deadline of October 25th to maintain an 82-game schedule. Unfortunately, today we learned that the two sides can’t even agree to meet in order to accomplish the necessary bargaining required to come to an agreement on this collective bargaining agreement.

Have they forgotten that bargaining must consist of  some actual communication?

The NHLPA requested to reopen talks “without preconditions” on Tueday night and their request was very quickly denied by the NHL.

The NHL wants them to talk when the NHLPA has something new to offer. They don’t see the value in sitting down if nothing in the offer has changed.

“They have indicated a willingness to meet, but they also told us they had very little interest in the proposal we tabled last Tuesday,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly said. “They also said they weren’t making a new proposal. What would we be meeting about?”

“The league is apparently unwilling to meet,” Steve Fehr said, “That is unfortunate as it is hard to make progress without talking.”

The leagues most recent proposal included a 50-50 revenue split amongst owners and players, changes to contracting rules including a five-year term linit, shortened entry-level deals and unrestricted free agency pushed back to age 28 or 8 years within the league.

The NHLPA’s counter offers focused solely on economics, seeing the 50-50 revenue split happen over time. They provided three different offers all focusing on economics. This is important to the players because they want to ensure that all of the current contracts are paid out fully.

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