NHL Players Ready to Strike : Hockey: Date would be March 16, if last-ditch attempts fail to settle contract dispute. McNall downplays possibility.

The line has been drawn in the sand. The date has been set.

But how serious are they?

Players on 11 of the 22 NHL clubs, including the Kings, have voted unanimously to authorize Bob Goodenow, head of the NHL Players Assn., to call a strike on March 16 if he deems it necessary.

Goodenow will meet with the remaining clubs during the rest of the week and hopes to have full approval for a strike when he sits down Monday in New York to meet with the league’s governors on a last-ditch attempt to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement.

The former agreement expired Sept. 15, leaving the two sides deadlocked on a whole range of issues from free agency to the pension plan to arbitration.

It has been rumored for months that the players would wait until the end of the regular season, after they had received their full salaries, to strike.

The players’ last paycheck will come March 13, leaving the owners vulnerable for the postseason, the time when they reap their largest benefits.

King owner Bruce McNall, however, downplayed any talk of a strike Tuesday night.

“I thought the talks were coming along well,” he said. “There is no sense of panic.

“Labor has got to do what it has to do, but I hope there will be no problems. I do not believe that they (the players) are that selfish, that greedy, that spoiled to do that.”

McNall, however, feels the authorization is simply a document Goodenow needs to walk in and talk with the NHL hierarchy.

“You would expect him to have it,” McNall said. “If he was going in there by himself and saying, ‘I’m Bob Goodenow,’ they (the governors) would say, ‘See you later.’ He needs some kind of backing by the players.”

The other persistent rumor over recent months has been that, if the players authorized a strike, management would respond with a lockout.

McNall also did his best to throw cold water on that idea.

“I do not favor a lockout,” he said, “but there are always these options available. I’m hopeful everything will be settled in good time.

“I have nothing to lose. If they walk out, they walk out. We will do whatever management must do to continue.”

What, McNall was asked, did that mean? Was he talking about importing his minor league club, the Phoenix Roadrunners, to take the place of those Kings walking the picket line?

“There are certain options,” he said, not ruling it out. “The league will have to evaluate what we have and what’s fair to the fans.”

While McNall was sounding as if peace is at hand, Bill Torrey, general manager of the New York Islanders, sounded as if he were preparing for war.

“If no progress is made,” he told the Montreal Gazette, “they’ll walk on the 16th.”

That attitude was echoed by Guy Carbonneau of the Montreal Canadiens.

“There’s no other solution,” Carbonneau said. “If nothing happens . . . I don’t see how a walkout can be avoided. If we play for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs, they will lock us out next year. Most of us really feel that way.”

The Kings took their vote last Friday after being briefed on the status of the talks.

“If you’re going to be strong,” King defenseman Larry Robinson said, “you have to be unanimous.

“You don’t think striking in any form is ever the right answer, but the owners have to realize this is serious.”

McNall, of course, sees it a little differently.

“Salaries have gone up 56% over the last two years,” he said. “There’s not much more we can do than that.”