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Dead End

Talks go nowhere; Daly says season is lost and it's time to focus on getting deal for next season

Saturday, February 19, 2005

The National Hockey League 2004-05 season is still dead. Despite media reports that a deal could be close or may have even been reached in principle, talks between the NHL and NHLPA in New York Saturday ended with the familiar report of no progress.

"Our discussions revealed that we remain as far apart as we believed we were last week," NHL executive vice-president Bill Daly told TSN.  "The rumours that the parties were close or had in fact reached a deal were greatly exaggerated.  There is still a long way to go."

NHLPA Trevor Linden agreed with Daly's assessment.

"It was crystal clear from our standpoint that we weren't (close to a deal) and that was evident today," Linden told the Canadian Press. "I don't think canceling a season looked that good to anyone."

NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin put it this way: "The season was cancelled on Wednesday and it's certainly not going to be resurrected after today. It's 100 per cent certain coming out of today's meeting that nothing could impact the cancellation of the season."

Daly said it's too late for this season to be saved and the goal will now be to get a deal in place for next season. 

"Focus is getting a deal done ASAP, and prepare to come back as strong as possible next year," Daly told Sportsnet after Saturday's meeting.

Saturday's meeting, which came three days after commissioner Gary Bettman canceled the season, lasted six-and-a-half hours. On hand were Daly, Phoenix Coyotes managing partner Wayne Gretzky and Pittsburgh Penguins owner-player Mario Lemieux. Saskin, NHLPA president Trevor Linden, vice-president Vincent Damphousse and NHLPA executive Mike Gartner were there as well. Neither Bettman nor NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow took part in the meeting. 

No new proposals were in made in the meeting. The league reportedly went into more details about its final offer, which featured a salary cap of $42.5 million. The NHLPA was not impressed when it saw the proposal in greater detail.

"I can't see anything worse than what they put on the table today," Saskin told the Canadian Press.

In other words, there was no movement towards a compromise on the dollar figure of a salary cap. There was speculation of a possible compromise at around $45 million, with the league possibly willing to start at $42.5 million and then gradually increase it to around $45 million over the term of the CBA.  The NHLPA would supposedly come down from its final offer of a cap at $49 million and the two sides would meeting in the middle. 

The two sides apparently didn't even get to the point of discussing the cap issue. Some reports suggested that the two sides were stuck on other issues such as salary arbitration and the entry level system.

The two sides couldn't even agree on the point of the meeting. The league was apparently expecting an offer from the NHLPA.

"We took a far different approach to this meeting than apparently they did," Daly told the Canadian Press. "The media advisory they put out last night, all the leaks in the press about a deal being done at $45 million (salary cap), I don't know where those came from but I can tell you they didn't come from our side. So there was certainly a suggestion that they were prepared to make us a $45-million offer today, but that didn't happen."

Saskin said the players thought the league had something new to offer since the meeting was the league's idea.

"I can't imagine how they would take that approach when what was clear is that they invited us to a meeting," Saskin told the CP. "So in that circumstance, you would expect and what we had heard is that they had more that they wanted to offer than what they did the other day."

The bottom line is the meeting left both sides bemoaning where the other side still stood after all this because nothing had changed since the season was canceled.

"When we saw more details on their offer we realized it was much worse than we thought," Damphousse told the Canadian Press about the league.

Bettman, who wasn't at the meeting, apparently sent a memo to league governors and alternate governors that said, "To sum it up the union is still intent on negotiating for more than we can afford."