The NHL and NHLPA’s negotiations have stalled over the past two days after a promising step forward by the NHL; in response, the league has cancelled another round of games, this time through November 1.
There was hope just a few days ago as the NHL offered up a new 50/50 proposal, and announced that they could still save the full 82 game season if an agreement were reached quickly enough. However, after hearing what Donald Fehr and the NHLPA had to say, and looking at their counter-proposals, it appears that we’re still in the ‘posturing’ portion of the negotiation process.
There’s still a very thin slice of hope for a full 82 game season, but at this point fans should start expecting some type of shortened season, if they haven’t already. A new deal would have to be reached by Nov. 2 if the league were to have enough time left in the year to save all their games.
The total now stands at 135 total games cancelled that would have run between October 11 and November 1, and with the lack of any future negotiations scheduled, that number only looks to increase. Meanwhile, hockey fans continue to do other stuff instead. I imagine the league is just hoping they’ll all come back once we’re done here.