Potential 2020 NHL lockout: it will be the players' fault!

The next seven months are critical...

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Potential 2020 NHL lockout: it will be the players' fault!
Twitter

The rumblings of a potential NHL lockout have grown louder in the wake of the NHL and NHL Players’ Association jointly announcing that they’ve run out of time to salvage the 2020 World Cup of Hockey. However, if it can calm you down, NHL insider Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic reports that "both sides plan to continue to talk and will set a long-term international calendar."

That sounds positive. Or like a good start we should say. Both the NHL and NHLPA must officially announce in September 2019 whether they’re reopening the CBA a year later in September 2020, two years before its natural expiry date. The next few months will be crucial. 

"Right now I would say the glass is more half full than half empty," explained Bob McKenzie last night in TSN's Insider Trading. "You're right the 2020 World Cup was sacrificed because there wasn't enough time to guarantee labour certainty for 2020 to ensure that the NHL and PA could go ahead with that joint venture called the World Cup. That said the negotiations, CBA related, have been generally positive between the NHL and NHLPA. Before everybody gets doom-and-gloom scenarios, but a lockout, a potential lockout in 2020, there's every reason to believe the next seven months are absolutely critical. That's when the re-openers kick in - Sept. 1 for the National Hockey League, Sept. 15 for the Players' Association, that's when one side or the other can terminate the CBA effect of the Fall of 2020. Right now there's reason to believe that there might be enough common ground that they might be able to get a deal done in the next seven months. Even if they don't, they still got another year before the CBA would expire."    

The NHL has made it clear it does not want to reopen the CBA and have established that the league is perfectly happy with the status quo. However, no one seems to know the players' intentions for now. 

If there is a 2020 lockout, will they be the ones to blame? Will they accept to play the 2020-21 season on the current CBA? LeBrun believes "there are concessions the players will want in the next CBA to guarantee labour peace."

It remains to be seen if an agreement can be in place "before the end of the summer or whether we need the normal chaos to get it done instead."

Will you blame the players if there is an NHL lockout?