Rumor: Early rumblings of a major delay to the NHL season.

The National Hockey League owners are entering into very dangerous territory and frankly I don't think that hockey fans are going to stand for it. 

For weeks now we have been hearing that January 1st will be the start date of the 2021 NHL regular season but reports over the last two days are now casting some serious doubts on that projection. The latest comes from NHL insider Nick Kypreos who revealed today that talks between the league and the owners have completely fallen apart, with no communication occurring at all between the two sides over the weekend.

From Kypreos:

Hearing [the NHL and NHLPA] has no dialogue on weekend for 1st time in weeks. Without knowing repercussions for denying owners request, players tell me they have little choice but to sit/wait. Some say league could threaten to push back start  as late as Feb 1st /48 games.

The thought of going another entire month of winter without hockey is pretty awful, especially for diehard fans of the NHL. Unfortunately as much as I hate to say it the comments from Kypreos today line up almost exactly with what was said on Sunday by player agent Andy Scott. Scott represents some big time names in the NHL like Patrik Laine and Leon Draisaitl, and he made it clear that he feels the players should stand firm.

"The players need to stand firm and they need to set a precedent they aren’t willing to negotiate in the middle of a CBA," said Scott on Sunday.

Scott said at the time that he believes a start date in the middle of January, or possibly even later in the month, would be far more realistic than the Jan 1st start date that has been proposed. That would appear to line up with what Kypreos is saying about the month of February, which is just awful news for fans who have already been starved for hockey for much of the year. 

Once again this all comes down to dollars and what makes this situation particularly frustrating for fans is that a new collective bargaining agreement was set in place just 4 months ago, prior to the NHL entering its playoff bubble. We can all appreciate that the league is taking a major hit as a result of the pandemic, but they knew that when the deal was signed 4 months ago and are now demanding even more from their players. 

While I am frustrated at these developments I can hardly blame the players for standing firm after they negotiated a new deal just a short while ago.