"We've given them everything they wanted," said Mike Gartner, NHL Players Association president. "We've made a tremendous amount of concessions along the way. Right now, the owners are being gluttons about it. They've been gobbling up everything that we've been giving and now they're saying, 'We want more, more and more.'"
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had his own opinion: "The players are of the view that they want to maintain the status quo, even if it's something that makes a good number of our teams unprofitable and not competitive."
Bettman said the sides were "too far apart on substance" regarding salary arbitration, free agency and rookie salary cap. He said negotiations ended even before owners introduced a plan to tax up to 25 percent of the entire payrolls of teams that exceed certain salary ceilings.
"The players told us that they had gone as far as they could," he said. "With or without the contribution plan, there was no basis for a deal."
But the players said the sides were close on the rookie cap and free agency. And, though there was still a gap on the arbitration issue, they weren't forlorn until the payroll tax hit the table.
"The big difference was Gary Bettman was dying to get this tax on the table and he pulled it out with flying colors," said Washington's Kelly Miller, a member of the player's negotiating team. "They wanted to say, 'Things have broken down, here's the tax.'"
"Maybe they felt that by throwing the tax on, they could get more concessions. The way I look at it, I've already given them my keys, I've given them my wallet, I've given them my car. At some point you've got to say, 'Hey, no, you can't have my kids and you can't have my wife.'"
No new talks are scheduled before Monday's NHL Board of Governors meeting.
The owners could decide then to become the first in pro sports ever to cancel an entire season because of a labor dispute. However, the NHL group simply could instruct Bettman to make his best deal with what is currently on the table. Or the owners could set a "drop dead" deadline and see how the players respond.
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