WASHINGTON -- With about 24 hours to forge a labor agreement or see the National Hockey League season canceled, negotiators were to return to the bargaining table Monday morning after the locked-out players Sunday unanimously rejected management's latest contract proposal. Both sides now have overwhelmingly refused the other's so-called final offer.


NHL Players' Association chief Bob Goodenow, in announcing the union's rejection of the proposal it had received from the league's Board of Governors on Saturday, said, "I don't think that there should be optimism. We're, obviously, in a very serious, serious, very difficult situation. But by the same token I think that it's incumbent upon both sides to take every step and exert every bit of energy to see if there is a common ground."


In summary, he called the likelihood of reaching a collective bargaining agreement by Tuesday's noon deadline "a daunting task."


So Goodenow and Commissioner Gary Bettman and their lawyers were to reconvene Monday morning in New York. It will mark the first time in more than a month that the two men have spoken face-to-face. Bettman issued only a two-sentence statement through the league office, acknowledging the players' response and the resumption of talks.


On Saturday night, the governors rejected the players' latest proposal, issued Wednesday, and then announced a counterproposal. With that came a take-it-or-leave-it stance and a deadline of noon Tuesday: Accept it, and the already shortened schedule would begin next Monday; reject it, and the NHL would become the first major professional sports league to cancel an entire season.


Because both sides agreed to meet, there would seem to be at least a little flexibility in each of their positions. Or is there?


"I really don't know why they're meeting. I don't know what's left to negotiate," said Dick Patrick, the president of the Washington Capitals, who reluctantly approved the board's counterproposal, stating that it gave the players too much.


Team owner Abe Pollin had to be convinced by his partners to endorse the plan and, according to Patrick, told the board, "No more talking, no more negotiating. If they don't take it, they don't take it." While the Capitals grudgingly voted for the counterproposal, six teams voted against it -- three because they thought it went too far in the players' favor, and three because they felt it was so close to the players' offer that they didn't want to risk the refusal that they eventually received.


Neither plan included a tax on team payrolls, which the union has refused to consider, calling it a salary cap. Instead, the proposals centered on the three other core issues -- free agency, entry-level salaries and salary arbitration.