What Deal?

[Jim Bob 0]

Bettman is on the radio right now saying the players never even made an offer over the weekend, they mainly just talked about arbitration.

Both sides are full of shit at this point. Don't listen to either of them.

I'll believe Gretzky:

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/2005/.../938809-cp.html

[Chadd 916]

I have no problem with them trying to negotiate the other issues before bringing up the cap number. It makes sense that they leave the issue where they were close until the end. I find it much more telling that the owners had no plans at all to move off of the $42.5 number.

[Jim Bob 0]

I doubt the NHL would have refused to move to $45 million if that's all that stood in the way of getting a deal done.

Just because they didn't have a plan to put forth an offer above $42.5M doesn't mean that that was really their final offer.

Heck, two weeks ago they were saying that they'd never give up on linkage and you saw that get thrown to the side.

The big question would have been whether one side or the other would have seen a deal that was agreed to fail to get raified when it was voted on by it's membership.

[Chadd 916]

The owners were never going to get a deal to vote on, it's a moot point.