NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman led their respective negotiating groups on Thursday in the second CBA negotiating session of the summer, according to the NHL.com.
As was the case with their first meeting, neither side revealed many details about what actually happened behind closed doors.
“We had a constructive meeting,” Fehr said. “When you’re beginning negotiations, you need to have dialogue. You need to see what you have a common understanding about, what you need to flesh out, what you need to discuss further. We did some of that today. We still have groups meeting now and we’re going to reconvene [Friday] morning.”
Eight players participated in the meeting, including Manny Malholtra, Ron Hainsey, B.J. Crombeen, John Tavares, Matt Moulson, Ruslan Fedotenko, Kevin Westgarth, and Rick DiPietro.
The current CBA is set to expire on Sept. 15, although according to Fehr, the players would be willing to start the 2012-13 campaign even if a new CBA hasn’t been finalized. It’s not clear if the owners would allow that to happen.