Following the NHLPA’s counteroffer to the NHL’s latest proposal, the league’s staff met late into the night and are still engaged in internal discussions, according to TSN’s Darren Dreger and TSN/ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun.
The expectation is that the NHL and union will meet at some point today to resume the negotiations, but there’s no firm timeline.
Update: The two sides will engage in informal conference calls and smaller group sessions this afternoon. Formal negotiations won’t start until 5:00 p.m. ET at the earliest, according to RDS’ Renaud Lavoie and Dreger.
The NHL’s offer included several key concessions and the union’s response was “comprehensive,” but that doesn’t necessarily mean that a deal is imminent. Dreger believes that the two sides are still apart on a number of main issues and he doesn’t think we’ll see an agreement made today.
Similarly, Sportsnet’s Daren Millard quoted an unnamed league source who said “we still have a ways to go.”
As things currently stand, it’s possible that we’ll get a 52-game season if an agreement is reached by Thursday. If that doesn’t happen, then we could end up with a 48-game schedule that starts on Jan. 19.
If the union and league fail to reach an agreement by those deadlines, then we might see the NHL cancel what’s left of the 2012-13 campaign in the coming weeks.