Players were to earn 72% of their salaries for this season under the previously agreed upon CBAGETTY IMAGES
The NHL's Jan. 1 target date to start the season "hasn't shifted," and "talks with the NHLPA continue," according to a league source cited by The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun. But LeBrun writes "given the Covid numbers," the season "may be further delayed" (TWITTER.com, 12/1). In Toronto, Kevin McGran notes there have been "no serious negotiations" between NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Exec Dir Don Fehr "for more than a week." This is "right in the playbook" from the '12-13 season. While Bettman is using a similar strategy, he "does not have the same cards." McGran: "The deck was loaded in his favour back then. The owners were in line. He needed just eight to side with him to keep pounding away at the players for a better deal." Financial "hawks" like Bruins Owner Jeremy Jacobs were "happy to oblige." McGran: "Now it's the hawks who are least happy." Bettman kept the owners out of talks with Fehr over the summer that "led to the completion of the season and this memorandum of understanding that ... guarantees a season in which the players will be paid 72 per cent of what they're owed." If history is any indicator, the players "will bend to the owners' will, just as they did in 2005 and 2013" (TORONTO STAR, 12/1).
UP IN THE AIR: In Ottawa, Bruce Garrioch writes the league "has to figure out how everything will work financially before setting a starting date," but it "doesn't feel like the situation will get better anytime soon to allow fans into the rinks when the NHL does come back." The players "can kick the can down the road on escrow, and they have every right to do that, but if they don't pay it now then they'll likely have surrender some cash in the later years of the deal" (OTTAWA CITIZEN, 12/1). The Athletic's Fluto Shinzawa said starting the season by Jan. 1 is “looking very, very iffy just because of how quickly things would have to accelerate." Both sides would "have to come an agreement, they’d have to set the parameters” how the season would look (“NHL Tonight,” NHL Network, 11/30).
MAKING THE MOST: THE HOCKEY NEWS' Ken Campbell wrote one has to "wonder whether the NHL is going to be able to go ahead and have anything resembling a normal season." Campbell: "Forget about the fact that the league and the players can't even agree on the language in their own collective bargaining agreement at the moment." If the NHL "does ever get around to coming to agreement with its players that will allow it to play the 2020-21 season, there's a pretty good chance the same things that have been happening in the NFL ... will happen there. Plans will change. Outbreaks will happen. Games will be postponed or cancelled." At this point, even a 48-game season that begins sometime in January and ends with the Stanley Cup being awarded in mid-July "looks like anything but a sure thing" (SI.com, 11/30). Meanwhile, THE ATHLETIC's LeBrun writes the idea of an all-Canadian division just for this year "has all kinds of appeal." Over time, it "would get redundant but for a few months this year? Fun." It should be "tremendously competitive" (THEATHLETIC.com, 12/1).
