League turns down NHL players' offer to meet

• Thursday is the league's deadline for being able to hold a full season
• NHL's Bill Daly points to lack of agenda: "What are we meeting about?"
• NHLPA's Steve Fehr says it's "hard to make progress without talking"

With the league's deadline for holding a full season rapidly approaching, the NHL Players' Association offered to get together with NHL officials again on Wednesday.

But deputy commissioner Bill Daly said he didn't see it happening because there was no agenda for the suggested meeting.

"They have rejected our proposal from last Tuesday," Daly said by e-mail. "They don't have a new one to present. What are we meeting about?"

Commissioner Gary Bettman has set Thursday as the deadline for the league to be able to squeeze in a short training camp and get in a full 82 games starting Nov. 2. It would be accomplished by extending the regular season by two weeks and slotting the remaining games into the existing schedule. The league, which has canceled all games through Nov. 1, doesn't want to push the playoffs into July.

If Thursday's deadline passes, more games could be canceled.

"The league is apparently unwilling to meet," NHLPA special counsel Steve Fehr said. "That is unfortunate, as it is hard to make progress without talking."

The sides haven't met since last Thursday in Toronto, where Bettman quickly rejected the NHLPA's three counterproposals to its Tuesday's offer.

The league last week proposed a 50-50 split in revenues, along with a softening of its initial demands on contracting issues, though many of the revised offers, such as a rise in free agency to 28 years old or eight years of service, are still worse than what players have now.

The players' three counterproposals envisioned ways to get down from the players' current 57% share to 50-50. The union methods could take up to five years to hit that level and the league was pushing for an immediate drop.

The league offered to "make whole" the salaries that players would lose in their first two years with deferred payments, but the NHLPA wasn't interested because the deferrals would count toward the players' share in later years and lower the amount that players could earn. NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr called it players paying back players instead of owners.

In a memo to players Friday, Fehr said the league was willing to discuss the "make whole" provision if the union accepted the rest of the proposal, with tweaks.

With a stalemate remaining, what's the next step?

"Back to the drawing board," Daly said.