Talk Swirls on Efforts to Revive NHL Season

Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux performed magnificent feats on the ice. Now, they’re trying to do something more improbable: resurrect the NHL season, which was canceled Wednesday by Commissioner Gary Bettman.

Well-placed sources said Thursday that Gretzky, managing partner of the Phoenix Coyotes, and Lemieux, player-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, spoke to Bettman in an effort to explore whether the season could be salvaged. Sources said Trevor Linden, president of the NHL Players’ Assn., and Mike Gartner, the union’s director of business relations, met with Bettman in New York on Thursday while players expressed concern about the failed negotiations to the union’s Toronto office.

The activity, several sources said, might result in players pressuring union chief Bob Goodenow to propose a deal that would include a salary cap set from $45 million to $46 million, and a prohibitive luxury tax. The union’s last offer, made on Tuesday, set the cap at $49 million; the NHL’s final offer, also made Tuesday, was for a $42.5-million cap that wasn’t linked to league-wide revenue.

Bettman and other NHL executives were contacted Thursday by a few owners who expressed anxiety about the economic damage a cancellation might cause. Bettman was said to be out of his New York office most of the day and unavailable for comment.

Bill Daly, the NHL’s chief legal officer, said Thursday he and Bettman had spoken to many owners and players in the days preceding the cancellation but that he had not been contacted by the union about reviving the season.

“I’d be happy to take that call and happy to have that problem,” he said, “but so far, we don’t.”

Sources said the call might be made today. Gretzky told a Toronto radio station he had not been involved in “formal conversations” but said he had discussed the league’s predicament with Lemieux. He also said he had had “extensive talks” with Shane Doan, the Coyotes’ union representative and one of about a half-dozen players who teamed with some prominent agents, owners and general managers to kick-start the flagging negotiations last week.

A source said Gretzky had broached the idea of a salary-cap compromise and Bettman didn’t reject it but said the union would have to make such an offer.

“There is a slight chance that this could work,” said a source familiar with the back-channel efforts. “But it is a chance.”

Said another source: “It’s going to be fairly dynamic and interesting, what may occur. It probably should have happened a long time ago.”

Bettman on Wednesday said the NHL would have lost money for two years if the union had accepted the league’s proposed $42.5-million cap, but he would have taken short-term losses to put players back on the ice and generate revenue again. For the NHL, a cap at about $45 million would have to be accompanied by other restrictions designed to discourage lavish spending.

“I would love nothing more than to strike while the iron’s hot so to speak, and take advantage of whatever little momentum we were able to gain in the last week and try to get a deal done in short order, so that we can work with the PA to prepare to relaunch the NHL as strong as we possibly can be come next September and October,” Daly said.

Ted Saskin, senior director of the NHLPA, said players had not pushed the union to make a season-saving deal.

“There are no back-channel talks,” Saskin said by phone. “What we’re hearing are rumors about various owners and general managers who are looking for some kind of continuation of the negotiations because they are not satisfied with the way Gary ended the negotiations....

“Since that time, Gary said they would be willing to look at a higher number. We wish he would have said that in the negotiating process instead of taking the position he did and shutting down the negotiations.”

If the union makes a proposal -- and if the league accepts it -- a deal must come together quickly.

An agreement would have to be written, examined by lawyers and voted upon by the union before the lockout could be lifted. In addition, more than 300 players would have to return from Europe, about 180 free agents would have to be signed, and a brief training camp would have to be squeezed in before the season could start.

There’s still time for a 28-game season. In the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season, the Kings started playing their final 28 games on March 9 and the Mighty Ducks played their final 28 from March 7 to May 3.

“The question now is whether the PA is going to give in to the pressure,” said a source. “The pressure is significant, coming from all quarters, that the PA and the executive committee should put in a last-ditch offer.... Bob may say, ‘I ain’t doing it.’ ”

Daly said that after the emotional letdown triggered by the announcement Wednesday, employees at the NHL’s office were in better spirits Thursday than they had been for a while. He attributed that to “what’s gone on in the last week to 10 days, that [the union] came off the salary-cap thing, and that was the big gorilla in the room forever. And the fact that they are willing to negotiate over one now gives people hope, and gives me hope, that we’re closer now than we’ve ever been to having a deal that can work.”

Bettman had said Wednesday he had prepared two sets of remarks for the news conference: one celebrating a labor agreement, the other lamenting the cancellation of the season. He put the cancellation speech on paper but not the “Game On” speech, Daly said.

“That would have been the fun speech to give,” Daly said. “He would have done that from the heart.”

He may yet have that chance.

Elliott reported from New York, Foster from Los Angeles.