The National Hockey League announced on Thursday that regular-season schedule through Oct. 24 has been canceled.
No, the games haven't been lost. Yet, at least.
The 82 games scheduled between opening night, Oct. 11, and through Oct. 24 have been canceled, but if a new CBA deal between the NHL and the NHLPA can be settled during the next three weeks, there's a still a chance an 82-game schedule could be salvaged — as closely scheduled as the games would then become.
What the Oct. 24 date does, in effect, is create another deadline for the two sides to work towards. Should that threshold be reached … well, then we're likely going to see the regular-season slashed down and the Winter Classic and All-Star Game at serious risk.
Back in 2004, the NHL and its teams cancelled opening night games as part of their initial preseason cancellations. This time, they were cancelled with the rest of the games for two weeks.
Among the notable games that are part of the cancelled schedule: The New York Rangers at the Los Angeles Kings for their banner raising (Oct. 12); and the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Philadelphia Flyers, their first battle since the playoffs (Oct. 18).
What does this mean? More and more players leaving for Europe, most likely, as NHLPA leadership has likely instructed them — either as a negotiation tactic to pressure the owners, or because Donald Fehr has told them that this lockout will be a marathon.
Meanwhile, the NHL waits for a counteroffer from the NHLPA, while the NHLPA feels it's made more concessions than the NHL has. And 'round and 'round we go...
No comments:
Post a Comment