Someone has to make first move if NHL hopes to play
In a normal year, American Thanksgiving, which was celebrated Thursday by our friends south of the border, is a significant date on the NHL calendar.
It's usually around the 20game mark for all 31 teams and it's often the time when general managers determine if their team is a contender or a pretender.
If they feel they're on the cusp of getting to contender status by adding a player or two, they start reaching out to their counterparts around the league to see if they can find the right fit. Usually at this point, the heat is being turned up on a GM or two and they're considering a coaching change to jumpstart their team.
This November, there's none of the above for the NHL and it sure doesn't feel like we're going to see any of this kind of talk anytime soon.
The landscape has changed in a lot of ways in 2020 and, as a result of the threat of COVID-19, this season has yet to get under way after the playoffs were completed in September. The hope was the players would report to camp Nov. 15 and open the season Dec. 1, but that quickly disappeared as the cases roses throughout North America.
Right now, the NHL has circled Jan. 1 as a start date on its calendar, but that doesn't look like it'll happen either so now we're looking at a mid-january or even later beginning to the 2020-21 campaign. By the way, the betting money in league circles is Feb. 1, but we'll have to see how this all plays out in the coming weeks.
There have been no talks between the NHL and the NHL Players' Association since the league asked the union to make financial concessions to help ease the mountainous losses the 31 teams will suffer if they do decide to go ahead with a shortened schedule.
“I have no doubt we're going to have a season,” a league executive said Thursday.
Like everybody else, he's just not sure exactly how that's going to become reality.
Sooner or later, somebody will have to pick up the phone and talk turkey to get the season under way.
We don't know if that will be the NHL commissioner Gary Bettman or NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, but the clock is ticking and the sense is if a season is to begin Jan. 1, then a deal has to in place by Tuesday.
The word is that during a conference call last week, the players told Fehr not to pick up the phone or budge on the union's position and, as a result, there's been nothing but silence between the two sides.
The players aren't happy that four months after signing a new collective bargaining agreement the owners have gone back to them asking for changes to escrow. When the NHL signed the six-year deal, Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly were hopeful by the time the season got under way there would be fans in the stands. Well, as we sit here today, that's not going to be the case.
There are NHL owners who will lose less money by not playing at all. The cost of the rent alone in some buildings may be enough to deter some teams from wanting to suit up. But, those same owners, know it's important that the league doesn't slip off the mat for a year with the NBA set to begin Dec. 22 while NFL schedule continues and Major League Baseball plans to open spring training in February.
Sooner or later the NHL and the players will find a way to come to an agreement that everybody can stomach, but somebody has to make the first move to get back to the table.