NHL, NHLPA Execs Cryptic But Positive About Ongoing CBA Talks

The NHL and NHLPA meet at the league offices in N.Y. today for the last of three consecutive days of CBA talks. The focus of yesterday's session remained on the owners' proposal, presented last Friday, which called for many givebacks from the union. "We met for two hours, give or take, and spent most of the day discussing the owners' proposal – mostly as it related to how their proposals could change player contracts and would have meaningful effects," said NHLPA Exec Dir Donald Fehr. "It's fair to say that discussion focused in no small part on what would happen to players if the scenario of their proposal was adopted."

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly called it "a good discussion." He added, "Each side had interesting views and theories and projections and predictions, and we hashed it through. That's what bargaining's about." Daly declined to go into specifics on the requests in the owners' proposal, saying only, "I hope it provides a useful framework for moving forward." Meetings will continue in Toronto next week.